Last time, I reported twenty dollars were on their way for two poems. Instead, the amount will be 30 dollars. They await me in Paypal for three poems appearing in the current issue of Teach. Write. Literary Magazine. One of the poems was rejected 18 times over several decades before finding a nest to nestle in. As editors constantly report, "Thank you for sending us your work. Sorry, these do not fit our needs. Perhaps they will be a better fit elsewhere." Of course, I fine tune my poetry every time I send it out, and so it goes. Sometimes, I'll see a revision that totally alters the poem, its arrangement on the page, even its underlying analogy.
I've reported writer's block several times in this blog. Now I'm dealing with a different type of writer's block. Some of the drugs I take, now, to delay my death by a high risk form of prostate cancer create fatigue, prednisone for one. This morning, as I sit at my local Starbucks, I can barely concentrate. I'm working on a rewrite of a story that includes brothers, sisters, friends and brothers and sisters-in-law. For the life of me, I can't keep them straight in my head. It's impossible to write when my brain is dazed like this. At least, it's not a hangover these days.
Keep at it my friends. I've had more success this year than at any time in my life, and I'll be 84 the 20th of this month. Still, three more sarcastic poems to come out in Sequestrum. I like the company I'll appear with in that fine magazine.
