the joy of writing...

I love this piece on writing by a guy named Billy Collins. I've edited it due to its length and lewdness...but this is brilliant. For you artists and writers out there, drink this in.
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Purity

My favorite time to write is in the late afternoon,

weekdays, particularly Wednesdays.

This is how I go about it:

I take a fresh pot of tea into my study and close the door.

Then I remove my clothes and leave them in a pile

as if I had melted to death and my legacy consisted of only

a white shirt, a pair of pants, and a pot of cold tea.

Then I remove my flesh and hang it over a chair.

I slide it off my bones like a silken garment.

I do this so that what I write will be pure,

Completely rinsed of the carnal,

uncontaminated by the preoccupations of the body.

Finally I remove each of my organs and arrange them

on a small table near the window.

I do not want to hear their ancient rhythms

when I am trying to tap out my own drumbeat.

Now I sit down at the desk, ready to begin.

I am entirely pure: nothing but a skeleton at a typewriter.

In this condition I write extraordinary love poems.

I am concentration itself: I exist in a universe

where there is nothing but thinking and typewriting.

I am all skull and bones typing into the afternoon.

Just the absolute essentials, no flounces.

Now I write only about the most classical of themes

in language light as the air between my ribs.

Afterward, I reward myself by going for a drive at sunset.

I replace my organs and slip back into my flesh

And clothes. Then I back the car out of the garage

And speed through woods on winding country roads,

Passing stone walls, farmhouses, and frozen ponds,

All perfectly arranged like words in a famous sonnet.