WRITER’S BLOCK


‘Surreality’ . . . WHB – 1959

I Needed a Prompt
Ideas Swamped
Inspiration Zonked

So on These Thoughts I Chomped

Writer’s Block? … Then … Why Not? …

… Picture a scene?
Not Dull or Obscene
But From Pope or Racine
From U2 or Queen

… Go back in time?
Make the Bell Chime
No Need for Rhyme
Grime, Slime or Mime

… Recap your History?
No Need for Sophistry
Give it Your Chemistry
Make it a Mystery

… Use your memory?
But Very Cleverly
Create a Summary
A Sensory Treasury

… Use an old picture?
With no Striking Stricture
Or Pure Holy Scripture
Just Make it a Mixture

… Look through those photos?
Your Secrets Expose
In that Indiscreet Pose
Please Put it in Prose

… Because many a photo
Does Set off the Word-flow
A Picture of Jethro
Heathrow or Chicago

… Try Mythology – So many tales?
With all that Entails
So when Memory Fails
They Breathe  Wind in your Sails

 … May I suggest such as these?
The Trials of Hercules
Perils of Pericles

Or the Wit of Diogenes

… Start with an image?
A Game of Cribbage
Begin with  a Scrimmage
Then Rape and Pillage

… Just put pen to paper?
Why not a Caper
In a Skyscraper
Don’t Leave it till Later

… Compose an allegory?
In Hell or Purgatory
Dormitory or Laboratory
Seminary or Conservatory 

… Invade the thesaurus?
With a Rousing Chorus
From the Stegosaurus
But do Play it Cautious

… Go to a boot sale?
There Without Fail
All Life is in Detail
An Observer’s Fairytale

… Steal an idea?
Make it Quite Clear
Something will Appear
 Perhaps Verbal Diarrhoea

… Revert to your childhood?
When Lost in the Wood
Uttering that Falsehood
Not Doing Something you Should

… Play to your strength?
Give it some Length
Strive to the …nth
Degree -Don’t Stop at the Tenth

… Play with a word?
Inane or Absurd
A Ludicrous Cowherd
Preposterous Bird

… Places you’ve been?
Aberdeen, the Cuisine
Avoid the Obscene
And Say what you Mean

… Try a spoonerism on your block?
Blighters’ Rock
Or Writer’s Block
Working Lock or Lurking Wok

… Try Love? – it’s a Must
Frank or Unjust
That True Tale of Trust
Lays of Lovers in Lust

… But, to make it tell?
To Ring everyone’s Bell
And Ring Loud its Knell
Do Hyperbole Quell

… And what about death?
No Shibboleth
From that Very First Breath
Write Another Macbeth

#     #     #

Finally, your Loins do Gird
Go Tell it to the Babbling Birds

That This is Not in Fact Absurd
I AM JUST SO LOST FOR WORDS!!!