Trask Avenue

Winter’s drought is here. Inspiration’s flood is suppressed behind water tight doors. My imagination is cracked and dry. I am a panting dog, a desert wanderer in search of an oasis. Everything has been stripped, locked down and sealed. Nothing gets in and therefore nothing comes out.

Like an escaped POW I make my way through no man’s land, explosions echoing in the distance. I cross the pitted and desolate countryside one step at a time, the remnants of fertile farms hard below my boots. I carefully climb through barbed wire barriers in the hope of reaching creative redemption. The sun is low in the sky, but I’m not sure if it’s rising or setting. Still, I chase it.

No songs play in my head, no melodies come to mind. I am sheet music without notes, a conductor missing his symphony. If my mind were a jazz riff it would consist only of a single drumbeat pounding in rhythm with nothing, percussion with no repercussions, a lone thump rattling through an empty club. I’m a singer with laryngitis on any empty stage without a microphone.

They call it Writer’s Block. I call it annoying.