Writers' block, obviously. Symptomatic of a strange change in me lately. Don't know what it is, but when it first started I thought it was "spring fever" and would pass. It doesn't seem to be passing, at least not rapidly.

I used to write just anything to get started; priming the pump, so to speak. Just about anything used to come out in poetry, in pretty clean verse with decent rhyme schemes and meter. Now it just comes out in partially disjointed sentence fragments; bad prose seeking poetic form. Of all the suffering in the world, I guess mine is the least, but I have to write something to get started again.

Had a poetic thought about a month ago (I think it was a month: There's a sort of time warp involved with this version of "spring fever"). Don't know whether I'll get around to writing this verse -- I don't know whether I'll be able to survive, support myself, find patrons or variations on that plan. So I may as well spell out the thought: Maybe it will just go away and leave me alone; maybe the unexpected will happen and the fog will clear.

I hear the same cadence as you, but the rhythm's hard to keep,
I'm on the same path as you, but I drift away from your pace,
Sometimes I'll trip because the hill's too steep,
But then comes a sitar or a harpsichord that makes me race.

You think I'm weird but I arrive on time,
I just stray to get attention, they often accuse,
For a while I tried to listen, but then I heard you cry,
And the ministers of scenery allowed me to choose.

I didn't want to leave, but I got in the way,
I'd walk a little faster, but my mood is too slow,
I'd be a little stronger, but today's not the day,
I'd dream a little louder, but you want me to go.

This seems an appropriate note on which to end.

Ernie 2006May30Tue06h35m50sPGMT-4EDT