I've been writing fairly consistently in the month of July, and I'm expecting to type some pieces up over the next week or so. In the meantime, looking back through the old manuscript, the following was page 4 of the book in 2005 that I never published...
Next Shakespeare
To write, or not to write, that
is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler, thy voice to
silence
Knowing full well the breadth of
fortune stifled,
Or sputter words upon the
waiting, white sheet below,
And in so doing, to burn naked on
the page;
To be praised or reviled, and
either way to smile,
To withstand the heartache of a
thousand critical knocks
Invited to the doorstep of the
soul sharer,
While shrouded cynics eager to
perform battery
Meanly disguise jealousy with
snobbish bromides;
The quest for praise will not
sustain the erstwhile scrivener,
And yet his heart beats, and
still his parched lips thirst.
Selfless existence promotes the
perpetration of a fraud,
But to tap the coursing veins of
creativity, bleeding black ink onto white pulp
Represents the whisper of a
scream, gaining echo into print
Where screaming is hushed by
satisfaction;
This fruit of life is knowledge,
savior of mankind,
Aware of self screaming for
attention from self,
For there can truly be no
question among the pantheon of poets,
The pleasure of the process
displaces accolades to elevator background,
The name of action must be
retained in un-ebbing reflection
And the Elysian Field of words
becomes the goal
Where only we lucky few may
flourish and persist;
To write is to breathe, and to
breathe is to write, this is your mission:
Flourish and Persist, Flourish
and Persist – You Next Shakespeare, You!
