No inspiration compels me
to pen these lissome lines.
I don’t get them through ESP
or galaxy of signs.
I harbor no hidden mystique,
at least no more than you.
I can’t claim Apollo’s physique
or dream in Xanadu.
Yet people are right to wonder
how words get on the page.
They don’t land there by some blunder.
The world is not a stage.
They come not from erudition
but something like a glitch.
It feels unlike intuition
and much more like an itch.
An itch that pounces suddenly
on palpitating flesh,
which will not quit ’till you decree
another Gilgamesh.
Yet it’s useless on my resume
and at the coffee-klatsch,
though I would not wish it away
no matter how I scratch.
Ziegler lives in Ewing. He has been published by the Times of Trenton and the Star-Ledger.
