Nope… Poetry isn’t my forte.
Write a poem inspired by,
The Waste Land,
Sweetly among the Nightingales,
How should I cram an octopus into a string bag?
Norton’s Anthology gives no instructions,
And it is impossible to say what I mean.
Sprawling at the windowsill, I gape,
Read poems much of the night, and go south,
I am frightened. I shriek, Marie,
Death and ravens drift above,
My chair scuffs the hours,
And the floor exhales fear in a handful of dust.
There dies a hidden city,
Across a bridge stretching into white fog,
A heap of broken images, when the sun sets,
The shadow of failure races to meet me,
Into the heart of night, the silence,
Living nor dead, I know nothing of rhythm.
No! Not the blue screen of death, the spinning kaleidoscope,
Which I forbid myself to see. I do not find,
The Hanging Man. How could I?
My muse is history. As midnight passes in the silicon age,
I see the moment of my greatness flicker,
The cosmos won’t sing to me tonight.
Shall I suck blueberries at dawn? Walk the familiar wolf?
The magic pixels throw patterns that are not what I meant, at all,
I will rhyme a time, settle a cushion against my back,
Stroke my cup, throw off the blankets,
Bite away and pull the ripcord to digital oblivion,
When I drown, owls give no comfort.
The original poem (somewhat famous) is here.