The Thrill Is Gone Poem by Robert Melliard

For weeks I've been writing easily
but coldly, shielding myself perhaps,
behind a sturdy rationality,
against a basic loss of love.

Where has all the feeling gone?

Patiently I sit and smoke till dawn
(wishing I could somehow stop)
waiting for a surge that doesn't come
to help me write a poem again.

Am I getting too old to be sensitive?
Perhaps our skins get thicker
like our toenails, with advancing age.

The fact my wife and daughter
don't seem to love me any more
just slides off my back like water
in an accustomed morning shower.

As I don't want to let them hurt me,
I need this shell around my softness,
and vow to let them desert me
without saying how I really feel.

Having done so much to deserve rejection,
I shouldn't complain, I think,
so I listen to B.B.King's 'The Thrill Is Gone'
and wish I could sing like him.