Write What You Know Poem by Barry Middleton

they say write what you know
but growing older I no longer know

and things I knew I have forgotten
like rusty unused tools my father left

the inconsequential things I knew
are memories strewn about my floor

age is an awful prison that weds us
to a spot in space to dream of freedom

in daydreams youth can come again
and humble travels can be undertaken

where would I go you ask
and easily I'd write the things I lost

I'd write the things I wrote
childhood days and woodland haunts

enchanted forests with nearly visible
dinosaurs and mysteries concealed

I'd write as I wrote of the waters
black, green with moss and sustenance

I'd tell of trustworthy comrades
and commitments sealed with blood

I'd write of an expanding Universe
and finding love in an upturned chin

I'd write of all the pain that's know
for all the souls who wake alone

there is a dearth of inspiration
growing into unknown years

I cannot write the known
where I have never been before

but I still feel it deep within
that once I inhabited the void

so I am left to chronicle a feeling
nurtured where the stars are reeling

there comes and end to pain
an end to loneliness

I have not been so I can't say much
I go there soon to never write again