I
the blank page is my horror
my blood stained vanity
the rectangle edges frame all my love and work
the corners hold an ideas’ potential
thoughts of mine are dammed up behind thin visage
and cannot express these copious wonders
the blank page filled with empty disappointment
sits on my desk in mockery
and echoes the tomb that I am in
the flood builds beneath me
until one day
I can bear it no longer!
I crawl forth from the dark earthen pit
like a worm that craves a breath
I will return to the living
with only a cup of water
my words are sparse and fleeting
but my life is all the more worth
if only i can break that page
that cursed white reflection
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
Your words capture the sheer terror of confronting the blank page. And terror amplifies rather than diminishes as the poem goes on. Psychologically, your poem is very astute. The writer's mind is part of the problem, so longing to create, so ready to articulate, so committed to communicating - There's too much energy piled up there, expectations and reality get tangled up and then it's like nothing can flow the way writing must. The writer has been reduced to a worm but that worm is stubbornly committed and slowly overcoming writer's block with a vivid poem about writer's block. It's like Yeats's passage, Now that my ladder's gone / I must lie down where all ladders start / In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.