The Wall: I Cannot Write

THE WALL: I Cannot Write

Em Keli 2003

I cannot write.

This commitment was different. No
apple pie in the sky
no neurtoic,
erotica.
Just the steady plodding
of the tortise
one hour
every
day.

Ignoring the hares as they dashed about
madly.
A commitment
even I could make a commitment,
one hour
every day.

Our relationship started excitingly sweet and tender like
all new
lovers
and I knew she wouldn’t leave me like
all the others who had
come and
gone
before her.

There was no jealousy that she might be dancing
on the pen tips of
others,
giving them pleasure and glee twenty three hours
every
day,
since I had my one hour
every
day.

...and I was faithful to my commitment,
day in and
day out,
one hour,
every
day.

But one Monday.

She was a
wall.

I cannot write.

Try as I might there was no
rimrose
to be found and
she was
impenetrable.
She had toyed with me before and I was
forgiving.

One hours loss today was two hours
work tommorow.
But I could forgive her for her
folly.
I was magnanimous.

I cannot write.

Tuesday she was the
Berlin Wall
more formidable and obstinate, blockading my
fondest desires to
penetrate.

But the Berlin Wall came down and
so would hers.

What was one basket
of two hours worth of
waste paper
only now meant
I owed three hours of
work
tommorow.

I cannot write.

Wednesday she was the
Great
wall
of China,
and I patiently strolled along the length of her
stroking and petting
every
brick
perusing every pore
with a renewed interest
in every vein of mortar
that held her
together
in turn holding me
back.

In search for that miniscule flaw in her
demeanor
that would let me
through.

And my trash runneth over.

Three hours of headache and my efforts strewn
like leaves,
upon an autumn yard,
across my now constricting room.
Four hours tommorow will break this spell
and vanquish this
hell.

I cannot write.

Thursday, the tortise
be
damned
and I joined the hares racing madly about
from pocket to pocket,
where the day before I had thought
I saw a glimmer
of hope,
only to discover each pocket
now firmly embellished with a
chastity belt,
secured in place
with
locks and
chains.

Four hours of gloom and the lingering unspoken promise
that tommorow
--five hours work miracles--
would find the
passageway
and the crumpled balls of waste
now accumulated to all four
corners
of my shrinking room
now resembled a youthful
oak.

I cannot write

Friday,
I called in sick.

Because I was

And before me her
wall
had lifted to the height of the
empire state
building
and even when I climbed for five straight hours nearly to the top,
too exhausted to
continue,
she eluded me
still, again.

I cannot write.

Saturday, her
wall
stretched across galaxies
and her peaks brushed the bottoms of
stars.

Back with a vengance.
More solid.
Still unforgiving.
Taunting me like a spoiled brat with her tounge
stretched
out,
mocking me,
as I scribbled
away
all six hours and a sixth
day.

I cannot write

Sunday.
Day of Sabbath.
Now forgoing food,
refusing to move from my desk,
forgoing sleep
and
amassing reams of
toilet paper.

Foul tempered,
teeth caked
with morning breath of past days,
hair unkempt and tangled,
in aroma of decaying unwashed flesh,
a forest of stubble
flourishing on my chin
and sleepless blood shot eyes.

The phone
rang
endlessly
somewhere
in the distant
background.

The door
chimed,
vibrated,
with
pounding,
but I relinquished not so much as an
inch,
tackling the fresh virgin white
paper
and fornicating on it
anew.

While she still laughed at my
endless
and fruitless
probes.

I cannot write.

Bukowski and Hemingway
had met the wall.
She drove them to the bottle.
Maybe it was the wall that lead
Papa
to his
orange juice and shotgun shell
breakfast.

J.Michner
succumbed to verbosity and superfluous
details.
Albeit with
success.

Salinger
unraveled
into Catcher in the Rye babblings
and discordant
thought patterns.

Nietzsche
philosophized man held the key to his
own
destiny
and died in the
assylum.

So many finally beat the wall
spit out through a crack
and found the
elusive
mystery.

Chaucer managed Cantebury Tales.
Conrad, Lord Jim and Victory; Melville, Moby Dick; Virgil, the Aeneid;
Lawrence, Sons and Lover; Milton, Paradise Lost; Fluabert, Madame Bovary;
and there was Bill, who
among his Comedy of Errors
tamed the shrew.

Ginsburg met the wall
and Howled.
She smoked him with sativa.

Leary met the wall.
and she turned him
inside out
looking through Dr.Hoffman’s
Sandoz lab
chemistry glasses.

I cannot write.

There should be solace that i am
at least,
in good company,
up against the
wall.

And I knew she would not leave me
like all the others
who had come and
gone
before her.

She is still with me one hour
every
day.
Burying me slowly with
reams of
toliet paper
scribbles.

And I will not shy from her,
will not be dissuaded
from my destiny,
but will renew my endeavor to conquer
her,

when I get loose
this
sleevless jacket
and
padded room.

I cannot write.