A Poet's Nightmare

.....by Richard Koss

I read what the great ones have written and marvel
at their thoughts, their words.

I search my soul and beg that it may give me sight
of that which I have never seen.

So that I may write and someday marvel at what I too,
have thought and written.

Now years later it comes. All the pleasures and visions
I have coveted from others.

All at once, I am overflowing. I drown, but I am reborn
in spirit and wisdom.

I write - my spectrum infinite, my toil inexhaustible,
my ambition insatiable.

I approach the moment of spiritual and intellectual orgasm.
Only to awaken.

To feel the pitted emptiness. To know that all I have written
is lost forever in a dream.

---