Ever been lost for words?

I don’t mean in speech

though that may very well happen

No

I mean in the mind

Usually called writers block – it is when inspiration has flown

and the mental tongue falls silent

Ceases to speak

And the world becomes bleak

Eyes stare through walls

such is the intensity of their gaze

searching

Searching

the horizon for words

Well mine doesn’t happen quite like that

In fact that

scenario is rare for me

If I have time to stare at a wall

then it won’t be very long before my words come

Calling

Falling

out of the sky

Homing pigeons returning to the roost

alighting

in a flurry of feathers

the flock growing larger and thicker

until I can’t see the outside world

for the view is obscured

by words

and I retreat

to write until the blur

recedes

Leaving me empty

But happy

hmmmm

However

There is another scenario for writers block

And IT

is the one from which I suffer

It’s when the practical

The real

The must do nows appear

When the thing that actually earns money comes knocking

and I have to answer the door

Take notes

Email

Add up sums

Pay bills

Write

but not my favourite type

Wordy things yes

But the words have no wings

They are all sharp and defined with punctilious punctuation

They are contained

restrained

and polite

Sometimes I enjoy them – particularly when I get to put someone so exactly in their place with such extraordinary grace that I become just a little bit smug about it

But that of course, is art

and administration is rarely about art

No

it

is

mostly

Dear Sir/Madam, order this and pay for that

and bloody workplace health and safety gaff and legal jargon which after all is the greatest crime of hyperbole that was ever taken far too seriously – in fact…

But I won’t start

because just the thought!

Tightens my jaw

and

Freezes my fingers on the keyboard

in frustration

Because I love my words and I hate to see them so misused

Beloved wild words

those extraordinary birds

Captured and forced to trot about

like some sort of trained animal

Art

bound

and turned into commonplace tools

It’s cruel

to take a beautiful word and then fasten it, nail it down flat, boringly slotted beside another and another so it just says this or that in an extraordinarily ordinary way and sentence after sentence full stop as if you meant it and then return, return start a new paragraph and look at this,  just bloody boring, right then time to close – cap it off with a kind regards

or a

yours faithfully …

Aggggggh!

Monologue in E Flat flat flat flat flat

No soundtrack

No rhythm

other than thwack thwack thwack

Anyway back

to what I was talking about earlier on

This then is

another form of writers block

Because when I am forced to write like this

the feathery things leave

Rhyming chant is wild you see

and

Wild words circle high

They don’t land

when I’m being

Company Secretary

and answering the phone

in that business like tone

Nope

They take flight

wheeling higher and higher

calling to each other

like hawks

their music becoming fainter and fainter

Until I can’t hear it

anymore

They won’t be back till sunset now

when I sit with a cup of tea

on the warm front steps

Lost in the colours of the sunset

Breathe

and then

with eyes closed

summon them home

 

And it’s off to work I go hi  ho. Actually I had already started at 5.30 this morning but then a little while ago with a cup of tea I saw a wild word bird land not too far from me and very carefully – so not to disturb it – I let it write its story into this post.

Have a lovely day wherever you are and if you are a writer or some other sort of creative artist then may you find at least a little space for your wild things to come calling.