Songwriter’s Nightmare
Where did it go?
I really don’t know.
I lost it weeks ago
in the middle of the night.
Too tired to get up.
Said I’d take care of it
first thing in the morning.
Didn’t want to wake the wife.
Now it’s lost in the ether
with some others, gone forever.
They never come back.
I feel like the blind man
in the yard next door
trying to find the red ball
his guide dog failed to fetch.
How does he know it was red?
Or the lothario memorialized
in the paper this morning
for crawling out the window
when his lover’s husband
caught an early plane home.
Left his pants and wallet behind.
Some things never come back,
sometimes for the better
but not this time.
The next time I wake up
in the middle of the night
and hear the band playing
a new song in my head
I’ll get up, believe me,
and write everything down.
It might be another
“Moonlight in Vermont.”
Donal Mahoney
