Paper

Blank it seems empty, safe, and ready.

Or is it taunting, laughing, mocking,

an expanse that yawns for using, filling, shocking?

"No! shake that feeling off, hold steady.

Paper cannot harm me, charm me, or alarm me.

My pen can disarm it, my words will reform it.

So why won't my Muse do the talking?"

The clock is now audibly ticking and tocking;

the white chasm before me still open and yawning.

Oh, God! Why is my inspiration not dawning?

"Release," I command, "the ideas you are blocking!"

I slap my head, filled with dread, afraid the spark is dead.

"It's no use", I said, "my Muse, she has fled,

so for her I must go a-stalking."

Resigned, I give up, inner beauty restrained,

but the paper still smirks with a vengeance.

"And what of you? What is your sentence?

Perhaps violence and fury and fire unchained?"

Without conceit, with justice to mete, I pick up the sheet.

"My words you cheat -- Ouch! A dastardly feat!"

A paper-cut I have sustained.