Erik Nielsen
When I Set Forth

When I set forth to write heroic verse,
I know of better words than you will hear;
My thoughts proceed in words that never were;
I blithely set down what I wish to say;
I justify my ways to my own mind.
Yet when I speak that mind I seem a fool.
Old Angst-and-Adjectives recasts my thoughts
In neutral tones, changing my hardy phrase
To metric mumbling, rude and obscure,
As when I wrote dryly and bitterly
Of sweet Dulcinea, who never was,
And then I must prop up my brittle structure
With others' lines, which I silently admired
Once, while re-reading them, at home, alone.

<< Back to Issue 4, 2002