"Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing."
~ Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835-1910), American author

Writer’s block’s a statue we must chisel
painstakingly when painterly won’t flow;
when the pattern blots and the thoughts fizzle;
canvas is stone slow to yield what to show.
Mood is the clay to transmute paper weight.
What is it we must speak of you need know?
Distinguish in form the heavy we hate;
shallow efforts leave us fakes when we go.
To the child-men who abuse children, then;
use rape as a weapon, sex as a war;
who talk tortures and prison cells playpen;
who toy with nuclear shell games once more.
Graven of the move of moral plumb line,
I decry whom I grapple to define…

© Helga Ross 2006