Thoughtcrime

"The imagination, like certain
wild animals, cannot breed
in captivity," Orwell said.
But I'm not sure.

I think the imagination,
like a querulous rodent,
continues to go about its business
in some pretty pinched conditions:
evil roommate down the hall,
who might turn psycho any time . . .
We hide between our walls.
We back up what we write
on extra floppies
and squirrel them away.

With a scary landlady,
a freezing apartment with a faulty lock,
or said roommate and her overbearing
boyfriend underfoot, the grubby cell
becomes a haven, and the act
of simply writing a rebellion:
a form of subterfuge.

Our schools, our homes
helped to forge cages,
and long after we've left them
we're not free . . .

Orwell himself felt
the Misery-like compulsion
to fill a shelf full of books.
He berated himself when he was not
writing, or not writing enough.
Guilt, anger, self-pity
were the irritants beneath the shell
that helped the pearls to form.

He wrote his last, best book
confined to a bed,
hemorrhaging,
coughing his guts out,
knowing he faced
a sentence of death.
He kept smoking, kept going,
gave himself over to his novel
as to the Ministry of Love.