'Here lies,'
***
Are the first words I write;
I've etched them into page after page
But each time I carve the words, it never bites
It's lacking, failing, a poorly put up stage
***
I feel my creative spirit is a dying
Each time I try to write.
Not for lack of inspiration, or for lack of trying
moreso my hollow heart and cynical sense of spite
***
At whom was I angry you ask?
No one in particular really.
I just feel that somewhere I've lost my mask
The one that made me brave, strong, and steely.
***
Is it reading over these poems, I wonder
Finding disappointment in these papers printed?
"Couldn't I have phrased this better," I ponder
"And isn't this part rather stupid."
***
Then I see, not one but three
And then three, and three, and a hundred more
Error after error, failure after failure, it's like I'm on a killing spree
Burying poems in the graveyard wastebin, tucked behind my closet door
***
As I sundered another paper, and tossed it to the closet wastebin
I heard the sudden howling and churning of winds upon my window
And then the toll of the chapel bell bellowing my lonesome grin
Yes, to laugh! Laugh at this pathetic show!
***
Then came tears to tear my face and draw streaks across every crevice
I banged my head upon my desk and howled at the howling wind cries
"A break. Yes. Let's take a break," I say, and rise from my desk with purpose
Down the stairs, out the house, going where men go to die
***
I wandered through my favorite graveyard, where words have sharpest edge
The trees whipped to and frow, and the bell shuddered in its peak
Where I read on stone after stone, their solemn final pledge
Across the night behind the chapel, lightning then streaked
***
And in its neon light I read the carvings of a better author
Who in the pens of gods etched two words in the blackest dye
Death had written another epic, words with a promised offer
Upon the stone in plain writing, all He wrote was, 'here lies...'
***
"Whose grave is this," I wondered, "that now lies buried here"
but no name could be spied upon the cold surface of the stone
Nor did any further writing appear
Just the simple two-word opening, etched all alone
***
"Could it be," I asked, "that this grave is not yet filled?"
"And if so, then who will lie here where Death has reserved his place?"
Then came another flash and from skies the thunder spilled
Startled I, the thunder did, and back to the house I quickly paced.
***
Inspiration struck to me like lightning as I ran,
"That's it!" I said, "that's the thing that I must say!"
I shouted with glee as in my mind I began to see the plan
Then I pressed the pen to page and kept my hand at bay
***
Paralyzed I was, unable to move to action
Gripped by a phantom none could know, my hand began to tremble
"What if they don't like it," I asked, "what if it gives no traction"
"Will I be stuck here forever in stormy thoughts and poems unassembled?"
***
Then I paused again, I breathed, I heard the bell toll
I pressed my pen to paper and all my doubts were free
I scratched my pen into word after word, writing out my very soul
Then the poem was finished; one line: "here lies me"
***
Here lies the me that failed to be what it should be
Here lies another me that could not be what I wanted
Here lies the me that had no creative vision, nothing to see
Here lies the me that by imperfection was ever haunted
***
And one day, in the chapel where an undug grave awaits
The bell tolls in the dead of night to call unto Death his due
Upon the stone that He has carved me, the final poem etched in fate
And in blackest dye a word He'll add to the stone-told story,
where he shall say:
***
"Here lies you"