Chasing the Flow: A Prose-Poem

Standing still whilst swiftly past the words go

Lately, I’ve been stuck standing still, whilst swiftly past the heedless words go — day by day, been blindly chasing the flow. Images arise, but not burning — merely smoke after the blazing fact of the fire. Elusive. Insubstantial. Not even embers to spark flame upon my pages, only the ash of the idea disintegrated. Creativity cremated. Blowing out the window of my consciousness, blanketing the floor of half-formed plots and premises. Hands try to grasp them — but they drift — right — through.

Once eloquent, my pen inanely stutters — stammering awkward — scrawls barely legible onto the jeering page. A stilted staccato — impediment beyond therapy.

Swear by black ink for creativity, but they’ve all betrayed me, spilling only shades of blue. Like Picasso, but not brilliant. Like Van Gogh on the day he severed his ear, blood pooling senselessly across the palette — smearing any sense of artistic vision — is this what it really means to see red — sensibilities in raging blind fury — hearing only the roar of the void through the wound of absence. Like Beckett, my humor turned black, my mind a derelict tramp of indecision — waiting for inspiration that never arrives, like Godot.

Craving the intensity of poetry, the density of imagery— a roam in my verdant forest of metaphor — but these faltering feet can’t find their way — have forgotten the intricacy of rhythm and meter. Traveling blind — and a dark moon sheds no light on the lost path of insight. No illumination upon the breadcrumbs of inspiration. Yet I dropped them only a yesterday ago — a mere story or two back. I hear their narratives — fading echoes, like the ghostly calls of birds long-flown from an endangered forest — winging for clearer skies.

Brain in a bind — and no cure for my continuity issues — I can only reach for a postmodern pastiche. Anyone can see I’m lacking clear transitions — paragraphs pronounced as symptoms of schizophrenia — or delusions of grandeur. Attention fried, excuse me but I gotta change the channel — and what was I about to —

My mind, mundane as a decade-long office-worker — should I be dreaming only of long-service leave — a cozy armchair where I will cultivate cobwebs. Place an ad in the Classifieds — in old-school desperation — Lost: One Writer’s Inspiration — Reward Offered.

Ideas flit — taunting mirages across the droughted desert sky of my perception— wordless clouds of incomprehension, releasing no rain to alleviate this tension — writer without words —blank pages breed misapprehension. Dreaming in symbols without meaning —I’m a Jungian nightmare. Waking without the surety of my syntax — morning coffee by my elbow, bitter without the word-flow, no matter how many sugars — I jus’ want a little inspiration in my bowl.

I’m bastardizing Barthes — this little death of the author — no pleasure about it — and the Muses aren’t mourning for me — perhaps they even planned my funeral. Snickering into their silk ‘kerchiefs — glancing impatiently at gaudy watches —

They’re only wondering if cake will be served at my wake.

© Melissa Coffey October 2021

This is my first publication with The Lark — thanks to Denise for welcoming me aboard.

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