When the words won’t come,
I need to write the most.
I handle each letter
Like Waterford Crystal,
Each delicate vowel is priceless.
Still I stutter--
Ink dry,
A pen at home in my hand,
Yet foreign to the white page.

An invisible barrier siphons the flow
To another land--
A black ink lagoon
Where word faeries bathe.

It is the pain that funnels
My words away;
Careless anger scatters
My thoughts, slices my passion,
Runs me through.
My voice sticks inside the clear barrel,
Weighing the dark fluid
With memories
That must not be spoken.

Memories of a time
When I was able to put the pen
To the page and create a wonderful world.
We were the characters,

Dueling to the death,
Roaming across the thick grass,
Trailing our fingers in the water…
I cannot express what is inside,
What phantoms glide through
My mind in their snekkja.*
They slink quietly
Through the lagoon,
Scattering the faeries along with my words.

Dena L. Moore

*Viking pirate vessel