Downhill Writer Poem by Doug Lane

Starting a poem
is something like
starting a run

down a steep, slick, terrifying, slope,
a slope
far too steep for you,
except
no wouldbe poet
has managed
to break
his neck or leg
or ended up
in a wheelchair
for life.

The hazards,
when writing
are spiritual
- -you can show yourself
beyond a shadow of a doubt,
how talentless, how gutless, how dishonest,
you are,
how far
your ambitions are
from your abilities
and pretensions.

You can so
humiliate
yourself
you'll never
raise your head,
or pen,
again,

all the stuffing, the moxy,
knocked
out of you
forever.

Because
whatever else it takes,
trying to write
good to great
takes guts.

The kind of guts
that get knocked
out of you
in the early going,
that you have to
gather
again and again
in your corner
between rounds
while blood
pours out
of your nose and eyes

and your opponent
sits
on the opposite stool
laughing his head off
and promising
to knock you
and your teeth
out
at the sound
of the next
bell.