What I'm Figuring out about Not Writing

I've only written a couple poems since the release of "Invisible Jazz" six years ago. I know I can still write. I have lots of starts and clusters of lines but nothing jells. More significantly, I haven’t found the kind of unifying theme or narrative track that I built my last four books on.

The truth is that I have nothing new to say.  I promoted  "Invisible Jazz", as "words and music that meld ancient Alexandria and medieval Paris with Neo-Platonism and baseball in a lyrical crucible fired by love and war and the mystical vision." That covers a lot of my worlds - and there's one particular poem in the book, "There is a War",  that neatly sums up everything I've ever stood for.

I only work four days a week now. I might use the extra time to write, maybe even to write some poems, but mostly I'm catching up on my reading (see LibraryThing.) In the meanwhile Tabatha and I performed "There is a War” at Dusty's Bar in NE Minneapolis on September 12 (below)

            There Is a War

There is a war going on,
between the forces of authority
and the forces of human decency.
There is a war being fought
on every level of existence.
It rages in our parliaments,
between the lovers of freedom
and the advocates of repression.
There is war in the workplace.
There is war in the streets,
between the people and the government.
Our bedrooms are battlefields
where we eye each other,
warily maneuvering for position.
We, ourselves, are divided within
as our Dionysian self clashes
with that inner Caesar Augustus
enthroned upon our souls.
It is the war between the truth and lies,
between intelligence and ignorance.
It is the war between love and hatred;
ultimately, the war between life and death.
And so, it is a war
where every battle is already lost,
as biology and destiny
has consigned each of us
to an end.
And it is a war that will never be lost,
for as long as life shall continue.