My Desk

Prompt 9-28

Theme: Where do you write? Describe it, the room, the surface (desk, lap, kitchen table?). Do you curl up with a laptop cuddled on the couch? Sit in a window seat? At your desk on a PC? Let me feel the ambiance or lack there of.

Words to use: owl, ribbons, pencil, evolve.
Word NOT to use: Write

Free verse, at least 40 lines. I really want to be able to see you in that spot!

My Desk



Antique schoolmaster's desk, with lectern piled high with notebooks,
opened mail, books and odd scraps of paper
with random thoughts scribbled on whatever is handy. Once finely
polished, it is worn with use, gouged and dinged. Almost a hundred year's
worth--from classroom to office to the altar of my craft.
Cubby holes and small drawers hold numerous treasures.
There's a secret drawer--but I shan't tell you where.


Tree branch propped in the corner curls up to the ceiling.
No leaves but cut-out paper facsimiles sporting author's names.
Decorated with owls and dragons, a quill and a troll
who glowers at me when thoughts come slowly. Desk snugged close to wide window
where, outside, birds hum at the feeder, iridescent blues and greens
catch my eye and sidetrack me. Air whisks in: the window,
regardless of season, is never fully closed.
Monarch butterfly sips nectar.

Cluttered work-space. My mind empties when my desk is clean.
I need the piles of work debris, threatening momentary avalanche,
the myriad items: purple flower, stone tower paperweight holding down
absolutely nothing, fern-embedded coffee cup that serves to hold pencils,
pens, a marker, two sets of useless scissors and, buried at the bottom,
a 1954 penny. Sticky notes ring the monitor: call so and so, mail
three books on Monday, get out in the woods and find that precisely perfect
place to get the cover picture of ribbons for Jukai. As I sit and mentally take stock,
several land crumpled in the trash. Work thoughts intrude, but that's okay:
I work well this way. I could never create on a laptop
in some impulsive location that changed on a daily basis.
Then, it would need to be in journal or notebook:
scribbled words erupting from pencils grabbed in haste.
I never, ever grab only one.

The ornate clock on the wall snicks out the seconds, tells time
in some other dimension. Never for here. But the subtle beat soothes.
Whiteboards bleat out things done and yet still to do, the pup snores
at my feet. Texts chime in, my daughter calls: Pachelbel's Canon makes me smile.
I listen to the entire ringtone, I never do that in rush to answer.
I will call her back when poem is complete. Mind wanders to where and how
others compose. How minds work in different surroundings. This, this
is my thinking spot, my wonder emporium, my creative cave. I am safe here.
Never in recent memory was I able to sit with my back to a room. Here I do.
I am inviolate.

My muse perches on bookshelf top, peering down at me. Over-sized dragon
puppet glares or stares or contemplates in unison. He is dusty; needs to fly.
Printed quotes tacked to walls remind me of things never forgotten.
J. M. Barrie: "The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease
for ever to be able to do it." Attached to that is another note: I know I can fly!
Many quotes, printed in twenty-eight point font litter my walls: Frost, Shakespeare,
Thoreau to name a few. I am surrounded by words, old, old books and ones printed
only last week. Three plain wooden books with names of my upcoming novels
inscribed in marker on the spine. Putting something (dream, idea, purpose)
in print will make it happen. I believe that. I have watched it happen.
Dreams become.

Empty coffee cup sends me off to the kitchen. As I return
I notice: My desk blotter calendar is still on July. I need the notes
on it though. I look to either side and there, the waning days of September
flow beneath two dozing barn owls on the one side, Toulouse Lautrec's
Divan Japonais on the other. Ivy entwined floor lamp is unnecessary now.
The sun is up, gleaming brightly, turning yellow walls golden. I smile.
I am truly happy here, at my desk. Inside out, full to the brim,
overflowing on to the sleeping pooch, happy. She is used to being bathed
in creative juices. This is where and, perhaps,
why, my poetry flows, my book evolves and where
my characters come to be. My place as no other in our home. My space
where I am more than simply me, where I can be the author-me and it doesn't matter
if, in my head, I am in Japan or Ja-bib or Everwhere. It matters not
if I am Fyn or Robin or publisher. The invisible hat rack on the back
of the door holds an infinity of hats and I wear them all; sometimes, several
at once, piled in an insane column. Anything at all
is possible here.

NOTE: Image is actually of my desk...just way neater than usual!