Process stuff

I seem to have a lot of poems about the process of writing.  I don't know why that is.  Maybe I'm thinking too much?  I have heard that the problem with people who study too much develop what's called "academia nervosa" and they lose their ability to write.  I wonder about that.  Robert B. Parker (Spencer, for Hire) had a PhD in English Literture, and he was able to do just fine.  A lot of it is the ability to turn off the editor while you're writing.  I think that's what gets in most people's way.  They try to edit as they go and it kills the creative flow of the work.  Sometimes we just have to let it go and let it flow.  Anyway, this one today is about the process.

Scrounging words

Scrounging words out of a mind
that has been strip-mined
down to the bedrock
with nothing left

call in the hammers
and the hard rock miners
there has to be more there
it can't all be gone

What's beneath the rock
that lies in layer upon layer
the dead from so long ago
that even it's name has forgotten

what's under the rock
under the bottom layer
so far down it doesn't remember
that there's a sky up there

go down far enough
and maybe you reach the fire
the fire in the middle
is there enough reach?


Copyright 2010 C. Thames