Ever felt like this?

[tectak]

It is less than two months since I last swore off writing poems.  I still have not written a poem, unless you count a couple of rude limericks and a rather angry verse that repeated the word "fuck" several times but didn't really say much else.  So, no poems.  The world has not fallen apart.

 
But I have.  I've still carried on life much as always, making sure that I get information from myriad sources on as many subjects as possible to stay informed and ahead of the game if possible -- but without poetry, all of these things have been dumped into my brain with no way to download them.  Poetry, I now realise, was my way of making sense of the world and in its absence, I have lost myself beneath piles of unsorted horrors, injustices, hypocrisies and the occasional kitten video.
 
In the absence of poetry, I have found excuses.  I have become the whiny, annoying person who can't help undermining all the goodness in others because I can't see it in myself.  I have actively sought reasons to avoid anything that might make my life easier, or anything that seems remotely creative because I mistakenly conflated my ability to write poetry with my underlying creativity and thought I needed to turn my back on both.  My anxiety has increased and my empathy has been reduced to virtually nothing.  
 
And so today I sit and write this with a wish that I had a poem to fix it all, and realise that the well is too muddled with pollutants to yield anything pure.  All I have are disconnected phrases and an overwhelming sense of cliche.
 
This morning I realised that to be human, I need poetry -- and it's gone.

From my blog

Stop whining and write a bloody poem.
From Tom the Pom (Hell, your moaning monologue was poetry in itself. Just punctuate it to perfection,  chop it up in to bizarre enjambments, centre justify it and post in Serious. Of course, there is always the possibility you have suffered a micro-stroke, Can you stick your finger up your bum and whistle "Dixie"? In tune, that is )