"crumbling crayons..." (P.o.t.D. 1/21/15 rev 1/22/15)

A sketch is begun with crumbling crayons
Upon a crumpled up, old newspaper
That was fished out of the city trash cans
With a lingering odor of dead bass.


"Well, not everyone's handed the same tools -
I can't assume your life has been easy,
or that your events will mirror my own."

"I could be wrong.
This could not be my best.
Perfectionism tugs me back, saying,
'If you don't try, then rejection's not...'"


'We don't want your excuses!
Give us a grand masterpiece!
It matters not what uses
You're denied by your caprice!'


"Everything feels half finished,
half thought out in a whimsical improv.
It's passed through but once,
to be forgotten tomorrow and tossed aside.
A lot of projects started,
but not "colored in";
life is so full of distractions."


'We want poems with more drama!
Stop with all of these dead ends,
Even though your mind's in trauma
That writing's a red herring...!'


"Mine's not a life with abuse,
or with fights with authority,
or with relationship stresses and trauma..."

"Oh, but there is that 'little demon', addiction;
and there is that touch of bipolar insanity;
and maybe something can be learned from
all that impending failure dogging my heels through the years..."


'We are not pleased with your poem,
Even though you use sevens!
Be like Bill - five feet and rhyme,
So angels sing in Heaven!'


"I write this, as a conversation with you;
instead of trying to hijack your mind's pilot
by painting a vivid scene, engaging the five senses:
vivid, popping, colors in your eyes,
tones, like a waterfall, in your ears,
smooth and rough textures upon your skin...
it's hard to convey crumbles and crumples..."


And, yet, in my head: 'Meter!
Rhyme! Alliteration! Forms!
Stray too far, and no leader
Be ye, even of new poems...'


"I've given up on this poem,
the one you're reading now -
the mathematician in me
is screaming for better order and structure;
while the storyteller
is chiding me for the
excessive director's commentary."


Not sure if it's finished, or needed more,
The paper's balled up, and kicked to the curb.
Dissatisfied, he left, feeling so sore...
So many nubs of crayon now dispersed...

Perhaps, we should rub our crayons' crumbles
Along the trashy newspapers' crumples;
To try to find a modern Turin's Shroud
Of last night's fish and shrimp we had devoured.