Jane Turell (1708–1735)

COME, gentle muse, and once more lend thine aid,
O bring thy succor to a humble maid!
How often dost thou liberally dispense
To our dull breast thy quick’ning influence!
By thee inspired, I’ll cheerful tune my voice,
And love and sacred friendship make my choice.
In my pleased ***** you can freely pour,
A greater treasure than Jove’s *******.
Come now, fair muse, and fill my empty mind,
With rich ideas, great and unconfin’d.
Instruct me in those secret arts that lie
Unseen to all but to a poet’s eye.
O let me burn with Sappho’s noble fire,
But not like her for faithless man expire.
And let me rival great Orinda’s fame,
Or like sweet Philomela’s be my name.
Go lead the way, my muse, nor must you stop
Till we have gain’d Parnassus’ shady top:
Till I have view’d those fragrant soft retreats,
Those fields of bliss, the muses’ sacred seats.
I’ll then devote thee to fair virtue’s fame,
And so be worthy of a poet’s name.

What should you do with a second-hand muse--
inspiration spent, and by his mistress abus’d?:
Feed him some grapes under cliffsides and clouds,
sit him under a tree;  read him verses aloud.
Make him a spectre of love unrequited,
tell him of enemies that you’d like smited.
Recount  transgressions, and triumphs and losses;
ponder Cruel Fate and the luck of coin tosses.
Tell him of all of your sins now excused--
how the Judge and the Jury have been recused.
And that any dream, urge, or whim can be used--
but you simply cannot go on as a-mused.

My muse is a decadent goddess
Smart strong and modest
Light brown smooth skin
And twice as delicious, my friend
A smile so charming
That it’s almost alarming
On a scale from one to ten
She is two times an eleven
And better than that
Has the spirit to match

My muse is the early morning
When it is barely storming
Earth soft and slippery
Cold but only slightly
Sun slowly rising
Sound of birds chirping
Deer just outside my door
Been there since four
Trees swaying
I can hear my muse a playing

My muse is a soft jazz song
With no word for me to sing along
Just a gentle sax moaning with pleasure
Piano in the background taking its measure
So deep and sweet that it could rock me to sleep
I smile because my muses loves me
My muse is tranquility
In everything
I hear taste or see
Such an awesome level ecstasy

Though my muse may astound and confuse me
Run from or pursue me
She is always there
She is everywhere
From a child’s eye lit with wonder
To the sight of lightening sounding thunder
Even my once or future lover
From the lips that I may never kiss
To the loved ones I will always miss
My muse is the perfect mistress
So this is a love letter to who
To all my million muses especially you

I scribble here, musing,
In my writer's mind, looming,
Is my muse a ghost writer?
A writer's mind has an insider,
How do your imagine your muse?
Like an ancient soul, thoughts to amuse,
Or is talent our muse?
Thoughts write themselves,
Creating lit. for bookshelves,
All a bit of a  puzzle, you see,
Musing on our muses, a mystery.......

Entertaining
thoughts of you
gives my muses
a taste of what
"could have been"
and that drives
them insane

It's funny
that inspiration
only knocks on
the doors of your mind
in times of heartache
in times of heartbeats
but never
in times of peace
... and as twisted as it sounds
I like that

A writer's
worst curse
comes in the
form
of apathy
and that my darlings
is the worst kind
of death

Your muse: a frumpy feminist who doesn't even like you or your poetry; a clipped-face mean-hair nag of a PC hag, a harridan of the nanny-state who inspires boring identity politics-driven free verse. Your muse smells nasty and has bad teeth. She voted for Hillary and loves Maya Angelou. Your muse barely tolerates your tepid unpoetic soul but she smiles a fake smile and lies to your face. Yours coerced you into publishing that e-book no one ever downloads. Your muse is unamusing, unmusical and moos like a cow. Mine mews and purrs like a sleek feline friend while sinuously scribing heroic rhymed couplets in the air with her tail. Yours grunts superficial Haiku through her snout then heads for her feed-trough in the mire. Your muse is a  dumpy data-driven bureaucrat who recites in a monotone to 3 medicated listeners at the yearly event. Your muse hired a social media specialist to market her product that no one wanted. My muse has no Facebook page because she want no Facebook page..

My muse is ergonomically sustainable in exquisite ******* epiphany. My muse laughs eternal rivers of lyrical light over the fact that your muse made you recite that silly stuff at the poetry slam. My muse loves me almost as deeply as I love her. Her ethereal body embodies all philosophy. One tiny point of light refracted from a single facet of her diadem will vaporize your merely mediocre muse. My muse is beloved of all true poets, for she stepped forth from the riven crown of the lyrical Father himself to bathe in the wellsprings of holy inspiration. You are utterly unworthy to even fantasize about kissing my muse's beatific, shining and holy ***. You wouldn't recognize MY MUSE if she knocked your post-modern skull with an Alexandrine sonnet. My muse gazes upon you for a millisecond and you writhe like an academic insect pinned to a collection board. My muse sneezes on you— and you get published in Atlantic and people yawn. Your muse makes entire English Departments nod off and then wake up and leave work early. My muse gets me high, drives me home AND pays my bail. In cash. My muse is an orthodox blood-washed Christian saint, elect of God and alive forevermore, shining wisdom personified, mother and sister and daughter of lyrical love. Yours is a lying crypto-Marxist troll who had to pay an ogre to artificially inseminate her and even then she could only conceive misshapen dull-witted free-verse freaks who whine about micro-aggression while they limp to the nearest safe space where they curl up in fetal position and scrawl confessional existential incoherent dullness.

My muse rocks. I love her more ever since she kicked your muse's unpoetic ***. I choose my muse so you lose.

Skeletons from my past    
that haunt me leap from my closet,
Heart beating fast,
sinful things that I have amassed,
now my mayflowers mast.
Both cast & crew, planked eyes, 2thru which they view.  
mutinous! venomous!
Now its down to the brig for the both of us. Couple Capn's in cuffs.  ...
What will await us on this new land?
Gold? Diamonds? If only!!!    ...  ...
Then suddenly unlocked for me        
Was the prison we were sitting in
S'like I was a slave now free
to begin again. Now hate is not my sin even as the spiritual muses spew vile things as I exit from: within
the anchored vessel Wrecka'less
one. my faith has been tested, & second, lessons taught with a gun... make mans war's never won.  
Go! Explore while there's still sun left!
Roll on cue (sonset)
curtains. exit stage left.