Room of misery,
doghouse,
cynic's kennel,
and the thoughts that will not come,
save images that do a belly flop
or flap like fishes drowned on shore.
Shut up like a selfish monk,
back turned on the world, its joys,
as if despising ordinary happiness,
recording dark stanzas of grief,
afraid of the wide world, its cruel lures.
Sometimes terrified I hit the street
and the street hits back
with noise and carnage,
so I rush back to my wounded den
and compose a diatribe against turpitude
and no poems come.