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Ode to an Absent Muse

What do I do when that fickle Muse deserts me,

Especially when a Monday Musing’s due?

She’s missing and I cannot find her,

So I’ve typed up drivel through and through.

And Muselessly mused where you can read it,

If you’ve honestly nothing better to do.

 

Might I find my Muse with shift F7,

My Thesaurus adjudicating,

That fickle Muse, that faithless muse –

Inconsistent, changeable, capricious, vacillating,

Unpredictable, erratic, choosy and exacerbating…

She’s fled, she’s vacant, abandoned me,

It’s very irritating.

 

Might I find my muse in gerunds?

Mayhap if I crank out typing?

If I pile on the begging, asking, pleading,

Squawking, shouting, hopping, bleeding,

Might she cheer me with her heeding?

If only just to stop this grammatical

Prestidigitating.

 

Might Muse emerge from metaphors,

Or past pluperfect verb tenses?

If I continue typing them like

A battered homesteader building miles of fences,

A sturdy pollster on an endless census,

A calloused mechanic without his wrenches,

Turning screws with his hands.

 

Zounds, I’ve hit upon it there!

The ancient craft of writing needs

No elusive pagan goddess here,

So much as just to persevere.

Inspiration’s not so much an inner ear

As the cramped fingers of a mountaineer. Oh, Muse!

I didn’t even need her.

Published inMusings

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