poeticsforum and 
dougsI have been writing some prose fiction recently and none of my characters are doing what I want them to do. It's been intensely frustrating and last night I got cross and asked myself "Why do I bother". I closed the file and scowled at the laptop.
And then the lines below wrote themselves. A bit of minor polishing this morning and they're ready to roll.
Why?
I thought about my writing, what my poetry is for;
It sometimes hurts to build a verse, I sometimes end up raw;
I feel my muse has hijacked me as its poetic whore,
But I prevail.
To ride the edge of sanity, to stride along the blade
Which cuts the mask away to leave my own true self displayed:
It leaves me feeling dark as night. It leaves me feeling greyed.
It leaves me pale.
My poetry can capture parts of how I feel and think,
Imprisoning my heart and soul in phospor or in ink.
I sometimes, on occasion, with my readers forge a link,
And sometimes fail.
The darkest lines I write are when my life is hard and worn.
My fervent hope is, reading it, the reader's soul is torn,
For in that dark epiphany another bard is born:
My holy grail.
