The 99 Poem Challenge
Fox-Trot-9

68. Ottava Rima — Poète Maudit *

Enveloped in the gloom, I look around
   And see the books stare back at me from their
High places on the shelves, each one a playground
   For me to frolic in, but now despair
Has me imprisoned in its vast surround,
   Enchaining me to silence on this chair;
And all the while, my books now call on me,
Flaunting their thrills upon my misery.

Perchance I take a book from off the shelf
   And settle down upon my chair to read,
But words cannot transport the brooding self
   To other worlds when that same self would need
A stronger force to cause to move itself,
   When constant brooding makes the soul to bleed;
Such is the state of me in my depression,
When everything dissolves with one regression.

And yet I linger still as silence bangs
   Its thunders on the beatings of my heart,
Reminding me of all the bitter pangs
   That life breaks over my creative art;
I feel life's interruptions as the fangs
   Of writer's block ripping my words apart;
I pick apart my words to little pieces,
Because I cannot find where every piece is!

My living hell inspires a thousand thoughts,
   But leaves them hanging on the cusp of fear,
Whereon each spark of life forever rots
   Upon the empty page of gloom and drear;
And so my hopes rise up like astronauts
   Only to die the slow death of every tear
I shed upon the altar of my life,
Whereon continues still the weary strife.

Sometimes I think upon how Hemingway
   Committed suicide to end the strain
That life inflicted on him from the way
   He lived an active life of fame and pain;
I feel the strain; the burdens of every day
   Collect upon my frame without the gain
Of recognition, courage or support,
As if my writings and my life fell short.

But unlike him, I lack the fortitude
   To off myself upon the quilt of death,
Even when I succumb unto the mood
   To think about the stoppage of my breath;
I only languish here in solitude,
   Repeating yet again my shibboleth: **
"Let life my well of inspiration keep;
For now it's time for me to go to sleep."

(To be continued...)

A/N: Ottava rima is an Italian poem written in 8-line octaves, with each line having 10 or 11 syllables (in Italian) or written in iambic pentameter (in English).

* Poète Maudit = (n.) French: accursed poet, coined in the 19th century by Alfred de Vigny.
** Shibboleth = (n.) Hebrew: a favorite saying of a group or way of saying something.

Meter: Decasyllabic or hendecasyllabic
Rhyme: abababcc dededeff...