Writer's block (2004)

this is the empty page of failure;
(to comfort, they call this writers' block).
carelessly, some say their muse is gone,
but this is not my case.
her wings beat, thousand times a thousand,
futile, that, against these bars of hate:
that strongheld fortress of extreme pain.
yet flee she cannot do.
what, this, that keeps me from that pathway?
what, fears can keep me from my dreams?
my ideas, certe, they spill before me,
pour from my battered brain.
what drew me, then, thus to verse lament?
bereft, perhaps, of rhythm and of rhyme?
rebuke cast on my youthful fancies:
believed, accepted, WRONG.
i write of sorrow and of fortune,
of love, of hate, of that which none can know,
i write the darkness of betrayal,
that oft-told tale. yes, that.
gentle muse, who then can be my help?
abandoned, yes; thus i see my fate.
is, then, this the time they bade me write?
i must. i can't. i ... do.