The poet’s muse
Wears down at heel shoes
And sleeps
And weeps.
Yet, in his poem she is beauty personified
Who never cries.
And when she and the poet dies
She may live on
Through future ages,
Preserved midst the pages
Of some book.
Though she be gone
Readers will look
And see a perfect view
Where no muddy shoe
Was ever worn
And no heart
Was ever torn.
Or perhaps his art
Will be true
To his readers
And to his muse
In her muddy shoes.
They are my muse.
I choose
To lose
Myself in abstractions
of attraction,
And thoughts of shoes
Encasing …
My mind racing,
Forever chasing
An unreal
Ideal.
The attraction
Of an abstraction
Holds the reader’s attention.
There would be dissention
Where I to show my muse,
Soaked in booze,
And guzzling pub grub,
And her shoes
All covered in mud.
I think
My readers would
Say “You do your muse confuse
With a girl sozzled in drink”,
Then, continuing with a wink,
“Morris has lost his marbels, poor old chap,
What a sad mishap!.
Or perchance he has taken too much wine
And thinks a girl divine
Who (one must confess)
Has no idea how to dress)!
Shall I break the spell
And tell
The truth about my Muse
Or would she her mystery lose?
I do maintain
That the abstraction
Of an attraction
Should continue to reign
On 17 January, I received the following comment/question in response to my limerick “There was a young lady called Lou”:
“Do these like, just pop into your mind; or do you have a scrapbook full of them?” (https://newauthoronline.com/2017/01/17/there-was-a-young-lady-called-lou/#comment-49477).
I replied as follows:
“Thank you for your comment. I thought this one up while eating boiled egg on toast and drinking Earl Grey tea this morning! Many of my poems come to me while walking my dog. Being blind I don’t carry a notebook. I have never learned to write by hand. I do, however touch type and write my poems using a standard Windows laptop equipped with Job Access with Speech or JAWS (software which converts text into speech and braille relaying the screen’s contents to me). I write my poems either at home or in my lunch hour in the office”, (https://newauthoronline.com/2017/01/17/there-was-a-young-lady-called-lou/#comment-49478).
In light of the above exchange, I thought it would be helpful for me to expand on how my poems come to me.
As I said in response to Daria’s question, “There was a young Lady called Lou” popped into my mind as I was enjoying egg on toast with a piping hot cup of Earl Grey, while other poems come to me as I walk my guide dog Trigger. It is frequently remarked that exercise is good for both the mental and the physical self. I would certainly endorse this view as a brisk walk often leads to the composition of a poem. I can not, however swear that all poems appear on paper exactly as they originally churned around my mind. My memory is good but far from being photographic in nature.
At other times I sit in front of my laptop pleading with my muse to take pity on me and whisper words of inspiration:
She is a fickle mistress who oft times does tease
And, on occasions doth please
The poet in search of inspiration
With which to wow the nation.
To my consternation
She does come and go
But, I know
‘Twas always so
And ‘twill remain
Until my life drains away
Or I, in senility, languish one day.
Kevin
My muses do tease
Please
And oft times freeze
My heart.
Entangled in my art
They know not that they are caught
Nor what the poet wrought
On once virgin page.
Upon my paper stage
They will forever play
Yet, from life, both I and them will fade away.
Sometimes the words won’t come
And my thoughts run
Confused
Away.
I lose
The sense of what I want to say.
My muse
Doth refuse
To play
Today.
I will not play tonight she said
shaking her flirtacious head.
But tomorrow who knows
for that is the way writing goes
I have dreamed poetry’s sound.
Something quite profound.
But when I awake
the muse does me forsake.
In the labyrinth of my brain
no doubt the words remain
But I have mislaid the golden thread
that ran through my sleeping head.
Sometimes I get them down
while the world sleeps all around.
But oft they float away
lost in the light of day.
K Morris - Poet 