Work in Progress

Please pardon me

if I don’t engage with you

but there’s work in progress.

And though I may appear to be

alone here in this reverie

there’s work in progress.

And I can see

you don’t believe

that I am writing here

but there’s work in progress

and I really would appreciate

the space and time to recreate

a feeling or a thought or sense or gesture

because there’s work in progress.

And though my hand has held no pen

or finger touched a keyboard

this work has been progressing

for the worst part of a year.

And unless I get the time

to reconstruct the feeling

you’ll find frustrated words are all you’ll hear.

I need to sit and think

for most of the time.

I struggle to find rhyme or structure rhythm.

I try to wheedle out from this

inadequate vocabulary

a pack of verbs and adjectives and

make a sentence with them.

And then when

something does come trickling out

it grinds and grates.

I squirm and cross it through.

Self-loathing and self-doubt

the harpies at my gates.

My harshest critic – me – or is it you?

I don’t mean it to sound wanky

but I get a little cranky

When the progress of this work

is grim and slow.

I’m not writing stuff

to sound poetic

or majestic

I just write stuff

when I feel a little low.

It’s all that I can do

and I hope you won’t begrudge me

a moment to explore my darker streams.

I can’t rant or reprimand,

and I trust that you won’t judge me

because this is all that being human means.

So back off a little, please,

and let me breathe

I don’t need you for pity or ‘support’.

I just need a little time

to mine this emotional grime

And when I have you’ll get a written report.