My whole life on scraps of paper
My soul jotted down on the page
Plot lines between scribbles
Character development as we age
Everything that I am, right here
Pushing to further keep my mind trained
My heart’s secret smudged
Within these lines my identity is contained
Reading the errant pages
Crumpling after each one is read
A gentle eye befallen the paper
Revising what each one has plead
Wastebasket- a lifetime away
Hoping it’s not the destiny of them all
Slowly, sacred thoughts form
Living in the weird space of my scrawl
Watching the paper soak up errant coffee
Spillage; correcting the bland, empty page
Blocked before you wasted the elixir of life
Words summoned now like a pensive sage
Freely letting loose a volley of images
We are released to our new mode of narration
Blinded aesthetics on a crisp winter morning
Forever allowed to remain alive in short bursts of inspiration
Scratching your soul upon the page
Following the seams beyond the thread
I don’t have the caffeinated gumption
So I’ll have to return to bed instead
Wandering through woven stories in my mind
Nib to paper is the only way I can meditate
Urgency of thought keeps me from sleep
Back to brewing; morning’s way to self-medicate
Lost in the crumbs of the paper fiber
A fresh nib shall never replace the quill
Smearing the answers with lazy strokes
The hazard of firing off missives at will
The drippings of my mind
The office, a soul in paper mâché
Books & notes of imagination
A collection of stories we played
It’s a subtle knowledge herein
Years of experience slightly compressed
Nicks, faults & scars smoothed over
Though I remain unimpressed
Scratching away at this drivel
Nothing created in which to be content
Scrambling for fresh ideas
At this pace, I’ll never relent
Feeling life through the paper
The keys leaving marks with texture
Don’t wander too long
We don’t want to leave life to their conjecture
I have stacks of unused paper
Like the untouched dreams in my head
We all have the forks in our roads
But often take the easier path insteadSo many distractions in my way
To give in to them would leave me mundane
I don’t wish to live an ordinary existence
I’d much rather push the envelope & become insaneThe results always lead to the same ending
We’ll all wander into death before we’re through
I don’t want to take a straight line to get there
I hope to zig, all the while forever holding onto you
Spontaneous inspiration upon my mind
Late evenings marked by dipping skies
Finding paper to seal away thought
Mesmerized with the way the ink dries
Perhaps I appear confident in print
The paper expands arrogance’s pitch
I can hide behind my words for a stint
Though the return to reality can be a bitch
Captain Q 