TO WRITE NO MORE

*The first in ballad and sequal in villanelle, my story of frustrations*

He held the book—the one he’d writ—

So high above the pyre;
A life of sacrifice to art
Would die in hungered fire.

No more to write; the poet quit;

No more of life he’d lose;
No more he’d put a pen to page,
No hours with some muse.

He fired the wooden kitchen match

With thumbnail and a flick.
“Ye’d burn!” he cursed his published work,
And ne’er he felt heartsick.

The match’s life devoured it—

The page that bore his name;
With callused look, he dropped the book
Into that red-orange flame.

He watched it burn with hopes to learn

Of life that passed him by,
While by the desk lamp’s meager light,
He’d penned his every lie.

The fire burned long, fueled by his book,

But came the time, it died
The blackened symbol of his work
Lay in the ash of pride.


THE AFTERMATH OF SIN

The paper lay with pen in silent plea;

I should have burned the notebook and that pen;
As if the pen had eyes, it stared at me.

I’d vowed to ne’er repeat my history;
I’d killed by fire and burned what might have been.

Still.  Paper lay with pen in silent plea.

Each time I dared to sit, the pen could see.

“And burn, ye lover’s stare into my skin!”
As if that pen had eyes it stared at me.

And if I dared return that stare, I’d flee

Into myself, away from some past sin.
The paper lay with pen in silent plea.

Long nights without repose, and what could free

A prisoner of verse and writing?  Then,
As if the pen had eyes it stared at me.

And late one night dawned the epiphany;

My soul should burn!  It’s damned to write again;
The paper lay with pen in silent plea;
As if the pen had eyes it stared at me.

                            --Monty Wheeler