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| Photo taken at The Metropolitan Museum in NYC |
Oh my muse, where have you gone? Sing to me. Dispel the depletion of spirit. Stop the flashing surrealness of events gone before. Sing my muse. Let me tell the story of brave souls who walk alone as if they are invisible, few seeing them and what potential is held within their shattered lives. Sing with honeyed lips so close to the ear, an erotic wind rushes like an electric current. Sing, for you are believed in by the multitude of Cassandra's standing in pantry lines. Who are they who disrespect us so, we who do not fit neatly into prefabricated slots? So much of their discourse is repetitious and dull. Save us from such persecution and affliction. Soothe the mind with aesthetic traces of capabilities that disappear in the night.
The smell of ammonia spells darkness voiding itself into the molecular structure as siblings laugh at your vertigo. They, like others, took everything so you took back. It hurt the spirit but you continued, pain being good for the art, bad for the day. Announce your ailments; watch them scatter as if someone threw a Molotov cocktail into the street. Win the award, they all gather to congratulate. Anger seeps through veins that almost killed you. The relentlessness of it complicates nightmares.
Who’s to know but combat veterans. You all sing the song of terror, violence, deceit, courage, survival. The offending judger of prodigious weight puffs himself up like a bunting on a Louisiana road. Reruns of his blessed self repeat endlessly. Halos sweep two anointed heads as if Cerberus, the multi-headed guard dog stands at attention. Kudos burn with fast food gluttony. A little Dexedrine to slice off the pounds. Your harried thinness, though, fools the doctors and caretakers. When you are upright, all is well. When you fall, no one is there to see or believe the tortuous days and nights. You fall too often so they slide the knife into the most tender places. You portray the villain, the pointless person in the midst of righteous blindness. Only sparrows understand, fending for themselves in the wilderness next to lush creeks as receding hairlines demand gratitude for their barbs.
And here is the sun. Here is the work. Here is the dowry paid for exuberance. No matter what the price, the cost does not matter. The longing breaches deadly spasms of lies you tell yourself when engulfed in madness. When it is over and you lived another day, the yardage makes sense, the blood-stained thoughts disappear. The room is filled with creation from the ashes of your discontent. You sing to the muse. She released you from forethought’s eagle. Your flesh stayed the course. You did go on.
