Putting Pen to Paper

It’s happened again!
I don’t know if it’s the pen
or the paper, but there are blots
and a swarm of purple spots
of ink where there should be
words. Or maybe it’s me.

Changing the cartridge to blue
didn’t help, so it’s not the hue
that’s causing the kerfuffle.

I got up and filled the kettle
to make myself a cup of tea,
thinking that maybe it is me
after all. While I sipped my brew
I realised that it could be you,
the tools of my trade had fallen out;

this wasn’t an arid poetry drought
but a stand-off between
my notebook and my pen.

I thought I’d prove the premise –
it had a lot of promise –
by attempting to write a rhyme,
but all I got was a scratch this time,
a great big tear across the paper.
I’ve resorted to typing on my computer.

Kim M. Russell, 22nd April 2024

Image by David Pennington on Unsplash

On the twenty-second day of this year’s Na/GloPoWriMo, at NaPoWriMo the prompt comes from poet and fiction writer Todd Dillard: we are writing poems in which two things have a fight, two very unlikely things, if we can manage it, for example a comb and a spatula, a daffodil and a packet of crisps, or they could be linked somehow, as in a rock and a hard place, and be utterly sick of it.

15 thoughts on “Putting Pen to Paper”

  5. This is clever, Kim. With tongue in cheek, you are blaming your faults on the Kid Compter, could be some Cousin Arthritis also chipping in. 

    I generally compose using my smart phone and let the computer help polish things up. But as of late my computer is also misbehaving, the “C” key (copy) is nearly worn out and others bounce giving me double letters and functions. My son did teach me how to make it do slideshow with my posts. It worked good yesterday until the battery balked after a little over three hours. 

    ..

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    1. Thanks so much, Jim! I’m off to my daughter’s for a few days to help look after the grandsons while their dad is away, and I’ll have to resort to notebook and pen , and then try to type poems on my Kindle. If you don’t see me around for a while, it means it failed.

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