Context:
the maiden is writing a poem called
The Trailing Tale of Billy O’Toole
The Trailing Tale of Billy O’Toole:
Growing apathy worn like black wool,
gently shorn from a quick punch cool.
On the verge of tear, and yet purged of fear.
Like a vagabond with a path unclear.
Life hits me in bursts,
the weight of it,
and I run through the rain.
I walk like the urge to vomit,
suppressed.
I dance like denial,
the stress, building up,
tips the brim,
and then
I swallow.
You have to.
Oh, I should have mentioned,
I am the aforementioned Billy O’Toole,
and I’m a goddamn fool.
My love life is in shambles.
My dad’s a drunk who gambles.
My life tripped up at graduation,
and harbored in self-flagellation.
Her eyes a-shiverin’, and her hands a-quiverin’,
the maiden stopped, and an ink tear dropped.
“O the pains, o the pains
of words with meaning freely feigned,
intent’s purpose wanes to dust,
like a sword that dulls when thrust.
Write a little, write a lot,
it’s still drivel, condemned to rot,
never saying what is sought,
roaming only to get caught
in the missteps there,
the inlaid errors,
the shadows.
And then that,
‘Why bother? Why bother?’
creeps in like cackling midnight,
hopeless and devoid of everything but black,”
moaned the maiden, her ink now fadin’,
droppin’ her quill like a bird, mid-flight, killed,
crumplin’ some parchment barely yet filled,
and makin’ the table a bed for her head.
Then who came down with a tick and a tock?
‘Twas the wordly-word fairy, a collector of clocks.
“Hello,” said the fairy, “I’ll make you feel merry.
I’ll give you a few of my wordly-word berries”
“Oh, fuck” said the maiden, “that’s just my luck.
Look, I don’t need your help, I’m not even stuck.”
But the fairy was busy with a click and a clack.
A stack of white paper, now covered in black,
was quickly sorted then thrown in a rack.
“That’s my done rack,” the fairy cracked,
as he tossed his typewriter into a sack.
“I just wrote a play called
Excuses, Excuses, Excuses!
It’s about excuses and all of their uses,
namely as a damper to productivity,
for which I have a certain proclivity.
But you, my dear,
have something to fear:
you never complete
the ideas that you meet,
even the ones that really are neat,
but you need to finish
for your time doth diminish,
and, if you don’t,
then, why, you’re no better than the Finnish—“
You know what? Fuck this poem.
-EJS, Contributor