Writer's Paradise: A Poem for Dreamers

Author:: Mark Tulin

Writer's Paradise

Where flasks of coffee, dark roasted, a hint of whiskey

flow from the coffers

where the computer keys
never stiffen or stick together

where the screen never freezes, the mouse never squeals

where the words are dynamic and strike the page with truth and purpose

where Hemingway, Celine, Dostoevsky give us tips, whispering in our mind's ear in a secret code, sign language, smoke signaling us to the right or the left

where the stories
pour from our characters' hearts
like bleeding ulcers and fine wine from Napa Valley

where the mundane, the cliche´
transform into a rich tapestry of colors and textures
never without tones or hue

where the critical voice, the voice that tells us that we can't do it has left for the coast, the coast of broken verse

where words float like notes

from hand drums, handguns
and church hymns, nursery school rhymes

and those seraphs and gargoyles
with lutes and mandolins
serenade us overhead like literary agents above the clouds

where our muse is always well-fed, bathed and towel dried

where the muse never has jet lag or acid reflux

the muse rolls onto the runway on time, takes flight
deep into the Shakespearean night

into the desert of day, flying over afternoon mountains, soaring over California at Disneyland

the sound that our writing makes is one big delicious Ommm and a half-smile namaste

like a hummingbird on caffeine

quietly moving, fluttering
drinking poems one by one

sipping the nectar from the yarrow and hollyhock

and infusing it into the next line.