' ' ' ' Writer's Block Poem by Dónall Dempsey

The poem
fresh from the pen
was still...& then

like insects
the words

scuttled off
the edge of the page

as if the world wasn't
round after all.

Words abandoning my lines
like rats on a sinking ship

like lemmings
leaping off a cliff

mass suicide
pacts

until the page
looked blank

blankly
at me

then the page
pulped itself

refusing to have anything else
to do with me.

Grew back
into a tree

& stood
its ground

a forest now
refusing to listen

to a word
I said.

I, leaving with only
a single solitary

full stop

who had remained
loyal to me