you are writing                     aren’t you 

he asked                as the answer slipped                              from time and space       trapped in my void

somewhere between honest answer and truth-telling                i waited          watching as it fell

 beneath the weight of our miles       through my silence

 while into the receiver,  i eventually whispered:

i am emptied          disheveled          in creative disarray

i am as blank as this worn notebook’s pages

i am lost here without the map from inspiration’s heavy hand

there is no one guiding the pen       no voices churning inside my brain

these once rapid- typing        hitting-often-on-all-cylinders fingers

rest now          fat dead worms           lounging                waiting for godot      on a keyboard’s

sticky keys

and i sit          tormented by autumn’s light today           gazing through these dirty windows

flustered                 distracted          by the now-constant flight of these painted leaves  

each on its own journey           an autumn fleet            sailing toward a decomposing pile

to join their companions

 covering  deck       ground     each speck of green land        some even finding rest in    a spring

 flower’s long ignored    container                     of     deadened remains

the wait has unnerved me 

thoughts and words must be buried beneath the piles of me    too                awaiting rebirth       

as i struggle to remember    the importance       

of  now-lost words            that once meant the world

i am as stark as the branches of these autumn trees

as chilled  as morning’s ground of late 

as wordless and as swept clean         as this nightime sky

a human tricked

 by season’s housekeeping

this art lies on its own ground      agitated in its flight on dead air

 buried beneath the distractions         swept away on the currents of a now troublesome

life

that has swept clean a once-vivid palette