I’ve been following a blog called The Write Practice for a couple of weeks now, which gives topics that are intended to prompt one to write for a set period of time (usually 15 minutes or so.) I decided I needed to start writing again, and as I am a bit rusty, any inspiration helps. The latest assignment was to write a poem in 10 minutes. Here is the result:

Having pondered over many a blank sheet of paper

And stared at his belly button for hours at a time

The young poet decides to write lines about how

He knows what it’s all about

And how he is hip, like his beatnik heroes,

To the ways of the world.

His black turtleneck chokes him, and he coughs up

The smoke from his Gitanes

And everyone knows that Rolling Rock is the one true alternative

To Budweiser, without being too pretentious

He sits in the corner with his notebook,

And his prescription Ray-Bans,

Scanning the room for those as (in)secure as he is

You dig poetry, babe?

Want to go up to mine for a reading?

(It works on the 99 percent rule…)

What happens when you take the poetry away from the poet?

Homo sapiens to homo etricus to homo facticus

(He also likes making up Latin words, it makes him feel genuine…)

All he is left with is himself

And the need to get a job.