Inspiration is everywhere
and nowhere at the same time.
Take the blank wall
I am staring at
right now.
Someone might see it as a
barrier to creative thought,
something solid and immovable,
a metaphor for writer’s block.
Windowless,
it sheds no light on the question asked
(what words are gathering just underneath
the tip of this pen, like droplets of rain
gathering for a sudden storm?),
the only answer: stone-cold
silence.
Someone might see this wall
as an inspiration–a starting point
for a poem about taking a walk
and coming up
(unexpectedly)
against this great mass of rock,
stretching out in all directions
blocking out all sense
of cloud-filled skies
and the sounds of
children playing in
wet green grass.
Someone might tell you
that trying to write a poem
is sometimes like
trying to walk through
this particular wall.

But not me.
As I sit,
staring
(pen in hand,
mind at attention,
waiting for one lazy
bumblebee of an idea
to buzz by that I might
quickly catch in a
net of scribbled words),
no matter how I look at it,
all I can see
is a blank wall.