the muse: shining portal on the cusp of a dead end street

in one signifying moment the just awakened poet sensed:

“most of what matters has already taken place in my absence…”

(yes…how very true…)

yet still persisting in this quandary, the poet continues:

“so if now and then we may only stumble upon glimpses,

how might we carry on to sing of these renewed visions?”

whence it all started…

Hellenic desert night

coyotes tittering, scattered along the outskirts of Western Thrace,

red elephant trees and purple sage dance about Orpheus’s head,

and some sudden wet wind

conjures more mellifluous chords gently surrounding,

ensconcing his decapitated voice…

and all the while,

silvery sweet Calliope’s lyre endures,

weaving songs magnificent,

till Orpheus’s now disembodied ears stumble,

clutching at his mother’s scroll,

a somnambulist’s struggle,

both then tripping over Calliope’s ivy twining neglected long hair,

rolling along,

rock by rock,

pebble by pebble,

each grain of sand beckoning,

mother and son thirsty for verse,

while Siren’s voice enfolds, entices,

evoking white and black magpies

demonically circling above,

scattering,

grasping at their ankles,

shackling their will to take flight

back to the garden…

but still stubbornly loyal to her anointed struggle,

and beholden to her father Zeus’s decree,

Calliope, despite eyes bloodied,

muse vision remarkable,

despite another poem swallowed,

another aura suppressed,

shut down,

buried,

stillborn-

somehow, yet with breath,

reawakens within a worthier and more robust soul forming,

and her songs again emerge:

honey anointing the lips of the gods of Greece!

so now with first precious light

as Venus wends an improvised path,

as windswept almond and windflower trees lay bare,

Calliope’s roused breath touches every inspiration

in perpetual exactitude,

and odists become unfettered again,

and grateful sailors reboard that shotgun radiant express train

circling back once again to Mount Olympus,

while we ephemeral poets speed onward

embracing our muse’s resurrected vision,

that glowing portal

now radiating forward

within our collective sight

12/7/17

Port St. Lucie