Only green sonnets from this pen,
beginning words from failure’s half-formed tongue,
in a struggle to create, to sing within
the time one’s finest words are sung.
Not these letters that score the page,
that stumble through and fumble back,
that play this mindless game in quiet rage,
not these, those golden words I lack.
Maybe once, all lines had fallen true,
somehow found their blistered place,
only glimpsed a glimmer of that shine.
Maybe once, I conjured words that flew,
that saw the smiling of one musing face
that fell so level, so clumsily blessed as mine.