Deli Mill

I’m forcing myself to come

up with something to write today.

It seems like I haven’t written

a word of any substance in a

very long while and I find it

distressing.

My creative thoughts are jumbled

in thought wheel limbo, churning

like an old mill water wheel in some lazy

river. There’s a flowery verse here,

crashing with a drunken verse there,

mixing with some mundane verse.

It’s all flowing downstream in a

mixed spiral of oil slicks, rainbows

and, I don’t know, baby food?

See, that’s a super mixed up

phrase that makes very little

sense.

It seems I have a lot on my mind,

sex, love, Friday, drinking, work,

joys, duty, depression, being an

individual amongst a symphony of

individuals. There’s a lot going on

in the old brain box.

Long.

Pause.

I’d describe it like waiting in line

at a deli counter, trying to decide

how many pounds of meat you’re going

to buy. Do you get the 2 pounds of

peppered turkey or get the roast beef?

Will you have your mind made up by the time

the burly butcher finally calls your number?

The thoughts are like all those meats,

sides, salads, cuts, behind glass, and you’re

licking your lips, looking for the most delectable

to sate your burning hunger, but nothing,

none of those meats are really doing it

for you. That’s how it is trying to pick the

right words to express, whatever it is that

is going on in my head.

So it’s like an old mill wheel in a river

and a deli counter.

And this is where it’s taken us,

to the end, of whatever this is,

a destination, likely unworthy of

the journey.

So hold onto your life preserver

made of bologna,

in the choppy river of mixed metaphors,

and incomplete…