Poem: Writer's Block

Writer’s Block by Wendy Bartlett

Is what I’ve got here writer’s block?
It’s quite a first, a writer’s shock.
Is my head stuck on last night’s show?
Or is it just my hands won’t go?
That lady’s shoes are clacking loud
I always wrote, I was so proud
I’m not like them, a pen to lips
Or her, those hands upon her hips
The voices at the table there
Annoy me, drink and eat, don’t stare.
The other’s write their speedy drafts
And when they read they’ll get the laughs
But here am I, my pen is stuck
My mind’s a block of solid muck
It’s New Year’s Eve and still I know
By the end of the verse
I’ll have naught to show
So here I sit, my lip is blue
Here comes that woman
With the clacking shoe
At last, a smudge across the page
Displays the heart of writer’s rage
It’s birth again, a moan, a tear
I truly want to get out of here!
I’d then let down my writing friends
Who sit here, writing stuff to send
To agents in New York and France
I know I’ll never get a chance
To publish, but you’d think I’d learn
That writing’s hope,
It’s life that burns.
A scribble starts the words to flow
Oh, girls, I’ve got a page to show.