.
I fear my motivation’s dead;
there’s no one home inside my head.
I’ve looked for it from dusk to dawn;
I tell you, it is really gone!
The situation is quite dire;
my neurons will no longer fire.
I worry that I’m up a creek
while it’s off playing hide and seek.
I’ve looked beneath the bed and chair
but just can’t find it anywhere.
I’ve searched for it so very hard
perhaps it’s hiding in the yard.
I’m lying idly on the couch
and finding I am quite the slouch
but there is nothing to inspire
the energy, the burning fire.
I’m thinking, with great trepidation
it may be gone for the duration.
It’s time to move, pick up the slack;
please, motivation, hurry back!
.
.
Siri Espy is retired from the corporate world, where her publications included two books, numerous articles, and innumerable reports and bullet points. Her varied career included stints as a psychologist, market researcher, college instructor, consultant, and health care planner and marketer. She lives in Greenville, North Carolina and has been published in Global Poemics with upcoming publications in Sparks of Calliope, Persephone’s Daughters, and Lighten Up Online.
An eloquent description of a condition common to all poets from time to time, I imagine, and well written, it flows off the tongue. A cattle prod is my only suggestion to galvanise the torpid brain. Otherwise just wait, for inspiration will come. In fact it just did, didn’t it?
Very funny Siri – I enjoyed this very much; also, because I am still in the corporate world and run/own a company called Motivational Maps! We specialise in … motivation! Check it out: http://www.motivationmaps.com. And if you like it, let me know and we’ll send you a complimentary map code so you can find out a lot more about your motivations! It’ll be a pleasure, and hopefully then we’ll get the poem about your re-motivation!
Enjoyed and could identify, Siri. Thank you.
James, if you are still reading this thread you should know, perhaps, that I clicked on your link and was led to “This domain name is for sale”.
Ah! JD – thank you for spotting the error: it should be
http://www.motivationalmaps.com – when you are typing fast it is easy to make these mistakes! Again, thanks for spotting the error.
Very cool and very well-written!
I really enjoyed and identified with it!
That’s a cute poem and very entertaining. I love the dichotomy between the subject matter and the presentation, great job!
Somehow concise and crisp at the same time. Somewhat Nashian, maybe? Zip trumps motivation!
Oh gosh! Laconic, that is. Or maybe just concise.
Oops
Siri, this poem is seriously funny. Yes, most of us have experienced the problem you describe at one time or another, but few of us have managed to record the situation so crisply. It’s almost impossible not to like this poem. If I were to describe it in one phrase, that phrase would be: thematic perfection.
Your work no doubt speaks to a very commonly perceived problem. Your idea is clever, but to me the repetition of “I” and “it” tends to be tedious even though typical of someone with such a complaint.
I would suggest reducing such dependence, but a lot of other folks don’t seem to be bothered. Just a thought for whatever it might be worth.
Yoiks, I don’t know what to make of that attempt at a sonnet. I’m sure you can do better.
I don’t recall alleging a sonnet had been created, and I would ordinarily welcome more specific criticism, but I assume you have rightly withheld it because such discussion would certainly not be fair to the author being addressed here.
It would be ideal if the site also facilitated private discussion, but in that absence, I will accept your unspecified astonishment in good faith as reason to reexamine the text.
It was a comment, not a submission for publication. I was not seeking, and have no desire, to divert attention from the work to which I spoke. I have separately asked Mike to remove it along with the text immediately preceding it.