The Poetry has gone out of me
I am as blank as prose-

There is no force of feeling in me
Flat as a lox my words on the page-

I am the middle of the Midwest
Going on and on on the surface only-

I have no inside-
No wind shakes me-

Words are words and only words,
Detached from all emotion-

How flat stale not even weary and unprofitable can a blank confessional poem be?

The feeling of being without feeling
No feeling at all.

A lox inside and a lox on the page.

Shalom Freedman

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-poetry-has-gone-out-of-me/