I’m not an old warrior

or a displaced refugee,

nor a jilted lover

a politician, prophet

or a parson,

I have no angst

I’m not addled nor addicted,

not allergic or awash

with argumentative rhetoric,

I am shrivelled, desiccated

and cracked, parched so bare

that nothing will grow within,

all my inspiration hampered

by banality, that dilute substance

devoid of taste, the burnt-out

residue of overwhelm

I am diseased with the vague

limp of tawdry blasphemy

I am ordinary, a voiceless

wordless cadaver

hankering glumly

over this empty page

GRS 7/24