Poem of the Day

To My Muse Early in the Morning

1

The touch of
your fingers on
my balls
is like the
drunkard’s wine
or the killer’s
bullet, yet
not even
they compare
nor give as much pleasure,
nor measure up.

The touch of
your fingers on
my balls is
an opiate
my love!
It is an
ecstasy finer
than an erotic dream,
finer than reams
of exquisite prose!

My lovely,
lovely muse
I have it in for you,
as you do
for me.

Let us dance
together tonight
on an imaginary
floor
in an
imaginary room
in an imaginary
world,
clinging like
insects to
our fragmentary lust,
us and
and nothing more.

2

I knew that day
and the day before
as we walked the
path along
the river;
I was yours
under a sweat-soaked
sun
to do with
to hurt
to laugh
to weep.

What is more
you leaned against
the riverwall
and beckoned me
like a whore;
on your lips
the words formed
like perfect sweets—
come dumb poet,
you pathetic man,
into my arms
you
need me.

How could I resist
such a clear song?
What man could
other than the killer
or the dead?

3

On our first date
you did not hesitate
to tell me
I ruined the years
before that day;
your honesty!

Your bitchiness
impressed me so
I began to ruminate
while denying
your real ambition—
to touch my
balls was
your solution.

With some care
and contrition
I allowed you the
opening move,
a tremulous hand
under the table
flitted against
my knee and then…
and then
the coffee in
the cup before me
swirled up
like an ocean swell
and drained
out in my lap!

A small case
of the nerves
I imagine,
yet I wanted
you my lovely
lovely muse;
how I ached
for you!

4

We have been
together now for years
with your fingers
touching my balls,
and you have only
gotten better;
how can a man
at sixty be so childlike,
so full of
love for his
muse that he feels insane,
confused
yet clear in one thing—
that his muse’s
touch is all
he can claim
to know?

from Nightscape in Empire & The Talent Poems

Note:  I actually don't put much faith in muses.  The imagination is tricky, and writing a poem is difficult.  Making one mainly involves hard work (and it's easy to get lost), but sometimes you run into a thought that doesn't want to go away.  It doesn't spare you or cut you slack.  The muse is the root of musing.  I feel muses are fundamentally unreal, an aspect of imagination that one might associate with unwieldy romanticism, likely the products of a slight derangement and a sense that anything is possible, even faith in an imaginary muse.  And it occurs to me that this is about as close as I'll ever get to explaining what I believe faith--or writing--means. Anyway, we all seek perfection; few, if any, of us ever get there.

TS