Woe to the Writer

I was set to ‘kill time’ in school today. Made sure my journal was packed neatly in my bag. But lo and behold, as I was set to write, my lovely pen was nowhere in sight, thus the silly prose poetry. Tsk.

Woe to the Writer
by: RJ

Woe to the writer who is caught without a pen,
When the train of thought starts flowing
He’s but a helpless, crying baby in a hungry lion’s den.

How else will he appease upset dragons breathing fire?
How can his words satisfy this insatiable desire?

How else will he rationalize, hypothesize or theorize
Streams of musings that go swiftly in between blinks of his eyes?

In earnest ramblings of metaphors? Pitiful twists, ironies in disarray?
In incomprehensible assertions — all that cause the reader sure dismay.

The writer caught without a pen,
like a naked soldier amidst a fierce battle
Is left to either run, hide or foolishly surrender.

What to do then, pray tell, when all you have is the ‘here and now’
And when neither yesterday nor tomorrow will ever soothe you somehow?

When there is no time to waste searching for an elusive pen
Lest the ideas before you fly in haste like silly men.

How does a writer write when mere fingers can barely make a line?
When what’s in your head is sure to leave you in no time.

Woe indeed to the writer caught without his trusty pal,
When words come raining on a summer day’s lull.

If he misses this chance, this one perfect trine,
Tomorrow might pass him without passion or rhyme.

How will he pocket letters, mix and match, confound and clarify?
When nothing seems a blessing but these words from on high?

Such waste of time, such waste of thought,
Such moving tragedy for a struggling, stupid moth.

A loss indeed, a loss in need.
For what glory does a knight have
apart from his noble steed?