Ariel Imprisoned

Ariel Imprisoned
by Rosalind Casey

Through sky and sea and lightning once I’d roam
In airy days before the cloven pine
This knobbed and stunted prison not my home
This narrow world of dirt and earth not mine
But memory is battered at by pain
And grows moth-eaten, ragged, worn and thin
I lose my shape, my story, my own name
Till chance presents a glimpse of sky again
And now the days and nights are all combined
Years coming, going with ambivalence
They flow together endless in my mind
I can no longer tell the difference
My cries, across the isle like some wild thing
Make mockery of time when I would sing.

* * *

Rosalind Casey is a native Texan, an undergrad literature student, and a Shakespeare junkie. She aspires to run away to the Forest of Arden. Her poetry has appeared in Goblin Fruit, Mythic Delirium, MindFlights, and the San Antonio-Express News.

What inspires you to write and keep writing?

What inspires me to write is this one idea, this sparkling and excellent idea, this idea that popped out from a conversation or a radio announcement or a walk with the dog, this brilliant idea. What inspires me to keep writing, once that idea has turned to complete rubbish before my eyes, and I can't string a sentence together and the world is a dark and joyless place, is probably less inspiration and more self-medication. I get ornery when I'm not writing regularly. Honest, it's not a pretty sight.