INSPIRED MUSINGS
after Ed Petrick

Agents

The muses got an agent, he's taking all their calls
My mobile has gone silent they've got me by the balls
Those little inspirations that I thought heaven sent
Now that they've been privatised they're asking 10 percent


Clog Dancing

The muses live in my pen
They are ink.
Sometimes they dance on my page
Today they are clogged
I think.

Dave Johnson

INSPIRATION
"All creative acts are inspired."

Creative, what does it mean? Pehaps simply to be alive, fully alive. Breathing in and out, inspiring and expiring. Is this where the muses come in? Paramedics descending from Mount Ida, reviving the nearly dead with heart to heart resuscitation, kindling flames from dying embers.

They don't come when called. Give in, give up and wait, then give up waiting and live with an open door. They dont knock anyway, but breeze through, inconsiderate in their affections, indifferent to insides and outsides.

Chaotic, but exacting, instilling the precision of a moment, leaving you dizzy and alive, leaving you in pieces that fit together in new ways.

Surrender when they approach.

"…Great with child to speak and helpless in my throes
Biting my truant pen and beating myself in spite
"Fool," said my muse to me "look in thy heart and write."

Philip Sydney
Astrophel and Stella


To the Muses

Whether on Ida's shady brow,
Or in the chambers of the East,
The chamber's of the sun, that now
From antient melody have ceas'd;

Whether in Heav'n ye wander fair,
Or the green corners of the earth,
Or the blue regions of the air,
Where the melodious winds have birth;

Whether on chrystal rocks ye rove,
Beneath the bosom of the sea
Wand'ring in many a coral grove,
Fair Nine, foresaking Poetry !

How have you left the antient love
That bards of old enjoy'd in you !
The languid strings do scarcely move !
The sound is forc'd, the notes are few !

William Blake