I have writer’s block
I have writer’s block
I have writer’s block
I’m sitting in a coffee shop.
I got the table with the comfy sofa.
My coffee is hot because the waiter
brought me hot milk, even though
I asked for cold.
I’m on holiday and I didn’t feel like arguing
on the first day of my holiday.
So I poured in the hot milk.
The coffee is bitter.
One spoon of sugar has made no difference.
I can taste the sugar layered over the bitterness.
The bitterness is still there.
I revel in it.
I have a headache.
The coffee is bitter like medicine.
I have writer’s block
I have writer’s block
There are blonde women in this coffee shop
These women are glamorous.
I am in a corner
at the table with the comfy sofa
with my bitter coffee
and my writer’s block
and my belly which shows when I lean back,
my hair which is silvering.
While I sip my bitter coffee
my ex-husband is driving our children
and his parents
along the coastal road on a journey towards me
in this little town
I have writer’s block
I have writer’s block
Nothing has happened yet to write about.
Everything is on a knife’s edge of nothing happening.
While he drives along the coastal road
and I wait and sip bitter coffee.
The coffee shop sells crafts and arts.
Kitsch but I like them.
Beside the sofa four mannequin legs
stretch flatfooted, toes at my earlobe,
plastered and painted in printed paper,
all in the blues.
The mp3 player plays music from the 60s.
Many people have sat on this sofa before me.
My arse slots into the dip they have left.
My arse.
My comfortable arse
with writer’s block
while I sip bitter coffee.
My belly trembles so I suck it in.
The blondes have no bellies
and no arses, but people with arses
have sat on this sofa before,
left their mark.
The waiter tries to take my plate.
I am staring out the window, fork in my hand.
I have eater’s block.
This is unusual (see belly, see arse).
My eyes are not seeing the blown tree
or the Coca-Cola umbrellas outside.
They are watching the sea on the left
of the car, the traffic on the road,
the wind turbines under which my ex-husband
is driving, with our children and his parents.
I reclaim my plate.
How much easier to resolver eater’s block
than writer’s block.
I have writer’s block
I have writer’s block
His parents and my parents have not been together
in four years,
since we split.
This visit is a big deal.
He is bringing them down the coastal road
to my parent’s house.
I am not a young woman.
I am not glamorous.
I am not blonde.
My belly shows when I lean back.
My hair is silvering.
I sip bitter coffee on a knife edge in a coffee shop.
The mannequin legs toe my ear.
60s music plays on the mp3 player.
From the ceiling plasterboard cutout seagulls sway,
vinyl LPs twist, chokka lamps rock.
They believe maybe that they are still on the boats,
their movement is serene.
I sip my second mug of bitter coffee,
lose myself in the rocking chokka lamps.
The car eats the kilometres.
Four years since our parents were together.
“You’re so lucky” says Jane
(all the artwork says Jane. Her eyes
are the cobalt blue of the sea the chokka boats
are rocking on).
“Divorcing and losing family is so hard
but you’ve kept that friendship.”
“Yes, yes, we’ve worked at it,”
I tell her.
“We’ve worked hard at it,”
I tell my ex-husband at the wheel.
He turns and smiles.
“We’ll be there soon” he tells me.
I sip my bitter coffee.
I embrace my writer’s block
and bitter coffee and scrambled eggs.
The blondes have all left.
Two women hold hands over the other table
with comfy sofas; seagulls drift, LPs twist,
chokka lamps are out at sea.
My ex-husband is driving our children
and his parents down the coastal road.
I am right here;
my arse in the arse-shaped dip,
belly and silver hair,
sipping bitter coffee,
my second mug.
archive - issue 18
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- AUDIOVISUAL
- POETRY
- WRITING
- Default
- Title
- Date
- Random
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A selection from a series of polaroids and paintings "We are Definitely Heroes" that calls into question our self-obsessed nature through the lens of…Read More
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de-identified examines the impact of facial recognition technology on individual privacy. Using augmented portraits of 19th century women and an imagined narrative, de-identified explores how…Read More
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I doodled your name by force. Yes please. I was not going to be that girl who'd pass through her teenage years without ever…Read More
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She’s a natural brunette. She has an incurable case of Resting Bitch Face. She’s a poet. She’s a dirt road that stretches into the…Read More
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Image GalleryRead MoreView the embedded image gallery online at:Character resonating out hard into the environs: with physical manifestations in Heaven and Earth; for better or worse; meteorologically, geologically, technologically; synthesising…
https://itch.co.za/archive/issue-18/item/1474-writers-block#sigProId2cbf4bd9ab
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