The Uninspired Novel

My life is a narrated story

written by unseen hand,

the beginning and ending of which

I wish I could understand.

My character seems half-finished;

dry, cliche, uninspired.

While the others are all so furnished

with detail, wit, and style.

The plot I must also mention,

for it has neither twist nor climax.

But paragraphs dead by extension

giving answers to questions unasked.

Am I this story’s protagonist,

or antagonistic villain.

I must have read and missed

a written clarification.

Added too are errors

scattered as seed to crows.

Being published without editors

to help the seed-words grow.

The readers are certainly bored—

they’ll stop at epigraph—

they’ll take a trip to bookstores

to get their money back.

It’s gobbled up by critics

who’ve nothing nice to say,

about what’s been deemed a flick

in a prosaic artistic age.

Who’s the writer anyway?

I ask, after climbing in bed.

If I’m the one who’s living,

who’s running what’s in my head?

Too late I begin to realize

that my novel has lost novelty

because the hand that’s writing

has always been attached to me.

Maybe I’ll try tomorrow,

perhaps I need some rest.

Or maybe I’ll simply borrow

from a novel with more success.