THEMELESS

As part of an exercise for Hunter Writers’ Centre we were asked to write poems to be laminated and sit on the tables of a local restaurant. I didn’t have a clue so I wrote a piece called Themeless. 

 It will take some time and the words will rhyme

‘Cause that’s what it says there in the rules.

It may sound like a song as it glides along

For poems can be written by some fools.

It started with a dream to come up with a theme

When I decided to use tri-quatrain.

But try as I may, good ideas seem to stray

And the whole thing’s becoming a pain.

A rapist in a park, no that thought was too dark,

An idea that was so soon discarded.

A bird in the sky, or a kid getting high

Are thoughts of a process retarded.

It could start like a ballad ‘bout cold meat and salad

Seems now that I’m thinking ‘bout lunch.

What I need is variety to stop the anxiety

Myriad new thoughts in a bunch.

I’ll make time for a swim, or an hour at the gym

Even the thought  is too strenuous.

Like playing the right part and suffering for art,

The whole thing is just disingenuous

It’s not getting any clearer as my deadline draws nearer,

And the afternoon keeps moving along.

Maybe I’m dense but I’m living with the sense

That everything I try is plain wrong.

At a time when I was younger I always had the hunger

To plough on ‘til my mission was achieved

But now that I am old my thoughts are less bold

And the bleating of my heart is aggrieved.

I could give it a shove and write about lost love,

But the sense of it is driving me ‘round the bend.

So, I’ve decided instead, that I should just go to bed,

And bring this themeless poem to an end.