The hardest step for an artist (of any medium) to take is to put their work out into the world; yet you have to start somewhere. I imagine that many people get this feeling of impending doom before posting something they've made-- after, too, if they've managed to post it. 


The Word in Ink

When I do think on those who've put their word
In ink, for naught but their perusing by 
The ones who wish them love and fame, I'm stirred:
I find it odd to dread those words that tie.

Rough are the frights and sleepless nights brought on
By perturbation; yet wherefore do we
Ascribe this wrath to them and grow withdrawn?
This them we fear, their praise fills us with glee.

What has been put in ink will cease to change,
And that which feels the grace of day will not
Return to night; those words that do derange
Us so, must be that thing we've never sought.

Black ink once set affirms our place among
Our loves; in truth, we'd rather go unsung.


And now that we've taken the first step (in sonnet form, of course), it seems much easier to go on and post something else: a five-part limerick of far sillier status.


The Happy Ending

There was a jaded young Jack from Laval / 
Stuck with naught but his nib in NorCal / 
He fawned over a fox /
And bare of all blocks /
He pursued his pedantic pen pal /

An adept in articulation /
The word was Tod's vulpine vocation / 
Drawn in by his diction /
And their fervent friction / 
They quibbled and questioned quotation /

With glib gadgets and gizmos galore /
Jack's writings were waggish, but wore /
And for marring the mind / 
While so brashly behind /
The fox gave him right roughly what for /

For his maiming and mauling, Jack moped / 
And so glumly he grappled and groped /
With Tod's frequented tackle / 
His critiques and his cackle / 
In the end, 'twas with him Jack eloped /

When their muzzles grew grizzled and grey /
Jack deduced with dwindling dismay /
That in trading blows /
Amidst passionate throes /
Their writings came out as quite gay.

-Charles Michael Averin