Editor's note: Amos is a church mouse, who types by hurling himself at the keys, but he can't operate the capital shift keys and he shuns punctuation marks — except hyphens and dashes. Our erstwhile poetic church mouse has been having a tough time gaining inspiration for his writing of late. He has tried a number of suggestions to get rid of his writer's block, including some warm milk and cheese late at night, but it just fed his insomnia. He tried tying bows on his tail, but he kept getting himself hung up on doorknobs, rocks and sticks in the church yard. Amos didn't know where to turn next, so he took a walk outside. overcoming writer s block the other day i stumbled across a ripped-out page from the m encyclopedia boss and it intrigued me on the ripped-out page it had a picture of a painting created by the famous renaissance artist michelangelo it was called the creation of adam and it was enthralling i couldn t get away from it its images haunted me the rest of the day finally i had to do something about it — and the only thing i know how to do boss is write something so this is what came out across the gray immensity of time the hand of i am descended to build a world of cold atoms of dead mountains of tormented seas and a clay robot as master of it all but into this falsely-animated chaotic dark and meaningless mass stretched this time the hand of love to touch life to the soul of man so there it was boss although it certainly does no justice to the work itself as i stood staring at the painting and at my poem freddy the flea hopped across the page hey what s this he asked it s a painting of the creation of adam says i and you wrote a poem about it freddy said can i read it sure if you want to says i a bit embarrassed i don t understand it said he what does it mean it just says that god created humankind says i even more embarrassed but isn t that who created you and me too says he is that what makes human beings so special freddy asked yeah i guess so said i and then i thought for a moment that s what makes anybody special with that freddy hopped happily away and i returned to stare at t hat glorious painting boss wishing i could see the real thing at the sistine chapel someday such are the hopes and dreams of the church pew underworld amos