The Writer’s Prayer

I’m a bit adrift in words right now: I’m halfway through what I suspect will be a very long (and, hopefully, very good) Halo column and nearly finished fixing the biggest fixable bit of my novel, with two end-of-semester uni paper-thingies thrown in to boot (most shocking of all, I actually want to write them). I also feel like I’ve got about two years’ worth of poetry chunked up somewhere like gunk in a spigot, and damned if I’m not going to get drunk at some point soonish, sit down in front of a keyboard and let the words ring out like a volley of dropped nails until I can think without borrowing from older, better writers. Until then, however, here’s a poem I wrote back around highschool, when I waxed most lyrical most often, and which kinda reflects my current state. So:

The Writer’s Prayer

our brain which art

commemorates, hallowed

be thy form! (a kingdom

come to earth) my will be done

in varied media: give us this day our

eyes, tongue, fingers, throat; forgive

us our songs, who cannot sing a note; lead roundly

into temptation/tempestuous passion

and avow

that we shall know some small evil. yours is the how/

why/ever/when; the dream and the dreamless dark –

amen!