#flashfictionfriday: Ode (to Writer’s Block)

Once again, I am embarking on a new project, and struggling with getting the idea down on paper. Therefore, it’s time for me to face the demon that haunts all writers–that moment when you have the brilliant idea, and know what you have to say, but can’t find the words. I will defeat this demon by embracing it into submission, as I do all who oppose me. (Did I just say that? Oh, well. It’s out there now.) I will write, no matter how hokey and lame my prose is, because revisions are my friends, and I am not afraid to write garbage. I just need to get these ideas down and on paper before I forget them.

Several years ago, while suffering in similar circumstances over Valley of Sorrows, I wrote this woefully over-the-top, somewhat lame, free-verse ode to that sad condition, and I published it here on this blog then.

Ode  

What beauty is this, that lies sleeping near my heart?

‘Tis word—and word should tumble from my pen,

Not lie locked within the chamber dark and inky.

Where hides the key to free thee from thy prison?

Oh, lovely word, spring forth from the trap that is my mind,

Set thee down upon this paper, word.

Let me hold thee, and from thee let me form the dreams,

The hopes and fantasies that fill my eyes and blind me to all but thee,

Oh word! Fill my paper with thy bounteous delight,

As you fill my head with longing, and my wastebasket with scrap.

Ode © Connie J. Jasperson 2016