Damnable Muse

[Jamie]

Must they all be so cliché
These words I write
So trite

Salted words drip off my tongue
Like lemon drops on a tequila morning

I tear these tiresome pages out
One by one ‘til none are left

Bereft of inspiration
I shine with perspiration
Born of frustration, indignation,
Lacking accolades I never wanted
In the first place

Now empty space
To save face
Better to write nothing than leave words in the wrong place.

Savory subliminals
Drenched in melancholy warning

Attempts at humor prove no better
Darkness seems to pervade these days
And syllogisms wend their ways
Ah! More clichés!

I dare to call myself Poet!?
Captive to an overused lexicon
Oh, dare I cross the Rubicon
And resurrect revelry lost to history?

How, too, these words stare at me as if upon a distant shore
Rudolph’s island of misfit adjectives
Longing for belonging

I’d like to send a ship out there to get them
And leave younger words behind.

Metastacizing yearning
Superluminal raindrops burning

Awesome is no longer
And Superb is just a word
Fantastic and marvelous and brilliant
Sound absurd

But I am stuck here with the pen I have—
This quill will cure no ill
Or leave me silent—
Still . . .

Damnable muse. Thy will . . .

Be done.