Am I anybody?

About my fear that my ideas are too awful, trite, mundane and generally unworthy of any real recognition.

I AM somebody

ready to make my mark

my fingers are poised above the keyboard

but I am unable to form the words needed

my mind is blank

Images are burned in my gray matter

Ideas fly and light like fireflies in my cranium

there is plenty of fodder to feed my pen

flitting, flying, flailing for attention

but I can't choose a damned thing

each and every entity I reach for is:

mundane

that horrid word blinds me, binds me to caution

for which fastidious reader would care?

care to even assess

much less empathize

and then I haven't a hope 

of praise

and no one will think 

that I am some discovery...

I need

Substance!

there must be character

my simple framework must hold

like an oyster shell, some precious

pearl,

a complexity within life.

I don't want to be an imitation of another

But,

can't I be airy like Emily?

Or,

rhyme ostentatious words like Poe?

Alas,

if only the Bard of Avon's literary prowess would prowl with me

amusing like Shel would do too

but my hands still fidget about the keys

lightly brushing imaginary dust

i'm no genius

just a nobody...still looking...

to be somebody

with a mind now utterly blank

a throat quite constricted 

for fear of failure

I cannot delve the recesses of this mind

If I cannot put hand to key

I shall never, never ever, for all of forever

be...

anybody 

Reviews

[V Artemesia]

The way you carry your poems is almost freeing. What really caught my attention in this poem is just the way you passionately depict the frustration any artist faces: the desperate will to conceive and create, but the negating forces which discourage our efforts. I feel as though there is the use of apostrophe here (feel free to correct me or to discredit my suggestion if it sounds too abstract or absurd) in the sense that you are addressing the piece of your unborn work while creating it itself. All in all, you really have lots of promise and great style.

[Seshat Nidaba]

I wish badly that I knew you, because it's people like you I'd want to know. I enjoyed the aspiration and wishful tone in this piece. As writers, we claw for inspirations, within and without, but I am to talent like a hunter is to the prey and I'm telling you, you got it.