literature

Art Blocks, Writer Blocks

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Literature Text

Art Blocks, Writer Blocks


Blocks are annoying.
Blocks are cruel and alarming;
Oozing in like yellow fog, or yellow cats*,
Or pounding at the door
Like people from Porlock.*2

Blocks sit on people
Weighing down like anchors,
Trapping your fishing ships.
Blocks keep them in the port of mind
Stuck in shallows and mud.

For the artists want to wade,
Deep into those waters
Looking for their catch,
Not small-fry sardines
But mythic Megalodons.*3

Blocks seem immovable,
Merciless and don’t negotiate.
They cling at your throat
And damn, they hold fast.
Blocks feel like Edgar’s black cat. *4

Blocks gloat and snide
And persist like a vine.
Some bite your head off.
Most just depress you—
You can count on that!

Can blocks be evaded?
De-blocked and deleted?
It’s possible but hard,
Like the punishments in Hades.
Roll, roll that stone—oops. *5

You sit at your desk
Your hands start to hover
Over paper, over keys.
Your mouth grows dry,
Your head starts to spin.

Then the bile creeps in
And you reach for the bin.
You cry as you empty your pit.
You know this frustration.
The block won’t let you face the page.

Then you stare at that page,
So empty and white
And you start over again.
You scribble and doodle,
You roll and roll—Eureka!

Blocks like to play rough,
They drop in and annoy you
But sadly we need them.
They remind us, you know,
That a writer has days of daffodils *6.
This is something I wrote while attempting to combat this general block that has overtaken me. I can't seem to write or draw anything |(

It's got a lot of references so...here you go for explanations:

* Yellow fog: Reference to "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot.

*2 Porlock: Reference to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan". Coleridge was in the middle of an opium-induced trance and composing the poem when he was interrupted by 'a person from Porlock', an English village in Somerset, England. The poem remained unfinished. Thus "Person from Porlock", "Man from Porlock", or just "Porlock" are literary allusions to unwanted intruders.

*3 Megalodon: Carcharodon megalodon, the largest shark in fossil record to ever exist, well over 15 m (49 feet) in length. Recent cryptozoology argues it may still exist.

*4 Edgar's Black Cat: Reference to Edgar Alan Poe's "The Black Cat".

*5 Reference to the myth of Sisyphus.

*6 Daffodils: Reference to William Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud".
© 2009 - 2024 ElvenAngel
Comments3
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Ξέρω έναν τύπο που τον είχε πιάσει writer's block αλλά προσωπικά πιστεύω ότι είχε μόνο το block, χωρίς το writers.
...να σκεφτείς είχε γράψει σήκουελ του Άρχοντα των δαχτυλιδιών με ήρωα τον εαυτό του...