By: Carl Papa Palmer

You’d think he’d have learned by now to take a moment
before blindly grabbing us from his night stand drawer.

If he would keep us in another room
where he’d have to actually get up
it would remedy our relationship.

He repeats his ritual most every night.
He’ll wake at all hours, snap on the lamp, scrawl his ideas
and in the morning can’t read a single word he’s written.
He is an author after all, or thinks he is.

Me, the paper, and my partner, the pen, have no active role,
yet we get blamed, maimed and thrown toward the trashcan.

Perhaps tonight when inspiration hits he’ll actually wake up,
write a first line of the next best seller and be able to read it.