General's lament

meditation on writer's block

General’s Lament


The words refuse to march across the page,

but my thoughts thunder and cascade down


until gray dawns evolve into stone nights.

Wet branches drag across the window pane—


clattering, clacking, screeling thru the rain.

The sullen, syllabic army still sits


within my mind smoking stale cigarettes—

griping, grousing, bemoaning their disdain


to gather themselves into formations

and trudge to some unknown doom called day.


jrs september 2007