Words

"Give me words, Thousands of words, I offer my kingdom for words For A poem I wish to write Not any poem But A masterpiece of a poem!" The aspiring poet shouted, and then in a lower voice added: "Give me: Nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, Determiners, qualifiers, distributives, prepositions, Infinitives, gerunds, participles. Give me verbs: Regular and irregular, transitive and intransitive, Main and auxiliary verbs. Now give me tenses: Present, past, future, perfect, and conditional tenses. Active and passive tenses included. Don't forget to provide me punctuation as well: Comma, colon, semicolon, question mark, exclamation point, Hyphen, and full stop. Hurry up, please, Don't just stand there... Bring me a chair, a table, and in God's name, Paper, many sheets of paper of good quality. Oh, yes, I almost forgot I need a pen, not any pen but A golden one since this poem is going to be Immortal!" Then he paused for a while, and Continued his monologue. "I am all set: Here I go... I am about to start... Ready to put down the first line... .............................................. Nothing." He waited for a few seconds..... Still nothing............................. Not a single word comes to his mind... " What is wrong with me?" He wondered! At that moment, he heard a whisper. He turned around and saw his Muse looking at him with pity and as she approached closer she said: " My dear child, if you aspire a poet to be, poetry you should approach with awe, and not with the arrogance that you have here displayed. Moreover, your soul's eyes at once you must try to open to enable them to see the beauty that your mortal eyes fail to perceive! You also have to let your heartbeat follow the rhythm of inspiration which our Lord has put there for all of us to use, so as the language of heavens to speak which to you mortals as poetry is known! Remember that words alone would never be able to help you the poem that you desire to write, without the intervention of the divine!" Thus the Muse spoke to him and quietly walked away, leaving him behind with: His thousands of words before him, His grammar, His table, His chair, His paper of quality, and His golden pen in hand Which, alas, had not helped him a Single-word to write! © Demetrios Trifiatis 22 January 2021