The Novel I'll Never Write

Back when I was in my teens,

the title justified the means.

I never found the time and dove

into my novel- “Sojourn Grove”.

 

There’s a place in my head.

Not a chasm or a valley or a cove.

An idea, instead.

Empty pages with the title “Sojourn Grove”.

 

A literary holy grail,

‘cause I’m not sure what it entails.

A family in financial straits

in the Depression, or someplace.

 

There’s a space in my head.

One you’d never find through any door.

Everything that I said,

titled with the phrase I coined before.

 

A duck befriends a pointer

for comedy relief.

A scene where boys ‘connoiter

a club with bad beliefs.

 

It’d all be purple unction,

but what’s the sojourn’s function?

Perhaps I’ll have a drummer

convalescing from consumption.

 

An oak with hieroglyphic bark.

A flood without a warning.

They would show it on Hallmark

around two in the morning.

 

My brain is where I make

that classic story live and breathe and sing.

If my skull weren’t opaque

I wouldn’t have to write the fucking thing.

 

The senator’s a royal ass.

The store has wooden shelves.

The grove has shadow-dappled grass.

I’ll paint that scene myself.

A brother who’s a bother

and keeps Mom up at nights.

An honest, upright father

who knows his Bill of Rights.

There’s a fire at the mill!

The townsfolk all pitch in.

And a fresh five dollar bill!

The Christmas-Saving Fin.

 

There’s a tale in my bean

about a restless man who never roved.

But, the plot’s rather lean

to my procrasti-epic:

Sojourn Grove.