Munching on the Manuscript

His intention was to write a great book

and at first it was like driving his car.

He knew where he was going

but then he made a sharp turn

and ended up in some unknown land.

He stood out in a field of words

that were growing wildly out of control

and tried to figure out which way

was home.  He needed some garden

tools or a pooper-scooper to clean

up this mess.

He picked up the book and threw it

against the wall where it stuck

like all his other books that created

their own geography, leaving him lost

in a woods of treacherous pencils

that never wrote what he intended.

He could not believe that he was

full of so much crap.

He was a fly’s dream come true .

He walked down the supermarket aisle

and the toilet paper stood at attention.

This was the consequence of reading

his own book.  Good God.  If this got

in the hands of the wrong people,

he could find himself at the drugstore

waiting in line to pick up his medication.

It was always like this at the end

coming home after too many miles on the road

seeing double the road signs and shadowy

animals just out of reach of the headlights.

He would lie in bed, his eyes magnetized

by the ceiling.  He would lie there until

daylight knocked him to sleep.

For days, weeks, mindless months

he would avoid anything that could leave

marks on paper or unpuzzle letters into words.

But he could not kick the addiction

anymore than an alligator could kick

the snot out of its own tail.

He would be back at his desk

zipping along, slowing down, staring off

into space, cursing the blank screen for

refusing to give up its secrets.

He would laugh at what a clever fellow

he was.

He would love and hate every minute of it.

There he would sit in the driver’s seat

                                                the dictionary his passport to      

                                                                the world.