/////////a/rt

By Claudia Ricci

Art

starts

and stops

for reasons

too mysterious

to ignore.

One day, you sit down at your computer and out pours

A perfect little poem. Your heart soars and you send the litte gem

-- your adorable child --

Out into the world and wait for the applause.

Ah, you say, I am quite the poet. I am 

An ARTIST, sigh, what a glorious thing it is to

To imagine yourself sitting in a sunny café in Paris

The tower soaring above your

Your head is adorned in a beret

You are penning poems all day long

When suddenly with no warning 
along comes a nasty spell
that lasts more than one day
one week
one month
OMG one year?
Before you know it,
you are dead inside 
because you cannot write a thing.

The well is absolutely dry

The soul shrinks

The heart is wrung out

Like a dishtowel after

The dryer spins is spinning

so loud you feel like you are inside!

"NOT FAIR" you shout you scream

You try everything you know 

But the mind will not budge

You think you are going

You ARE going crazy and

NOBODY IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD CAN FIX IT.

So what do you do besides wait and drink and smoke 10,000

No, silly, you don’t smoke.

You sit there feeling yourself choking

What is the word for living and dying all at once?

You beg you plead please God

Please just one more just one more

and then one morning 

even before

you wake

out of nowhere comes a voice 

“You will write again today!”

Did somebody actually say that?

If I didn't then WHO? 

Did I say that

BEING THE ARTIST is no

Smooth road?