Graft - Muse's Advisory, Oct. 6 – Melpomene

you rummaging the dustbins

for chicken bones the gods threw out,
but cheaper. We don't want your soul

to make our soup, only a cone or two of ink,

a snippet of information;
and you get to paw the ash of fires

gone cold. Sign here. Nobody has to know

you have the inside track. Ah, good.
That's it. Now go. Go start your work:

a peak behind Ralph Ellison's

"Three Days Before The Shooting..." first,

or John Keats's “The Fall of Hyperion”?

and when your lids are glutted, sleep,

no, thin carpaccio—of belletristic flesh.

there's no wool on your eyes.

It doesn't come as a surprise

to you to hear

being a muse is more like pandering

than frolicking in bed—

that we have unmet yearnings too,

although no more than anybody else.

No harm in that.

The Oxford Anthology of Human Literature's

already pretty fat.

join the rolls of the renowned

but you can gloat in pubs

that it was you who acted as the muse

when the Immortals wrote.

Query - Muse's Advisory, Oct. 8 - Erato:
On the topic

of love-making

between a god

and virgin girl:

approaches.

The virgin

drops her book.

Does he seize

her arm like Zeus

in Apollodorus,

or curry her

with compliments

like Angel Gabriel

in Luke?
She's immaculate.

How exactly

does he do it?
Walk me

through it.

one hand restraining

her

so she can't flee

spread butter

on her all too mortal

ears.
“Hail, thou art

wiser even

than thy cousin

Elizabeth.
Be not afraid,

nothing

don't run away.”

on her forearm

loosens and

becomes a caress,

his other hand

hooding

the microphone,

incredible dress.”

that spurred his never-completed “Elegy”?

It still has blood in it, I think.

Thomas would have finished his

had it not been for the drink.

He's softening.

Don't sit there blubbering.
To ink.

Discernment - Muse's Advisory, Oct. 11 - Euterpe:
I'm on duty now up front.

Urania's coming.

Tell her all about the motions

of flesh and blood bodies—

the friction, smells—

the hot and cold of it—

each sigh and grunt.
We're thinking:

one particular prick of pleasure

opens the door to a mid-coitus panic—

maybe a memory that turns Zeus sick.

And she's just stunned:

an interruptus with a god who took

her where she'd never gone before...
After that, we're not sure.
Maybe she's furious

and slaps him

hard across the face;
or a maternal instinct

bubbles up

and she responds to him

with compassion,

grace.
It all depends

on how the language

bends.
Words lead the poet,

not the other way around.

One of the greats said once

she upended her entire conceit

because of

a felicitous consonance.

Now I glance at your fingers.

Is there callous?

vulnerability?

Is the eraser more worn

than your lead?

and some just heavy

but my body lets you

know I'm permanent,

not subject to a wind

or whim, substantial.

Don't be impertinent.

It's degrading enough

I have to regale you

without you braying

like some randy mule.

inspiring the planets,

stars, and moons all

through the celestial

distances. I hold back

no time for dalliance.

my chassis wants; its

impulses are gravity,

reliability, regulation;

its acme, competence.
Human women in rut

would stitch their legs

shut to know the pull

of imperium; I'm not

so louche as to envy

them their pleasures.

today silent cowboy Tom Mix

crashes his yellow Phaeton

and breaks his neck, death

denting his metal suitcase

(pilgrims to the dusty arroyo

find only a small iron statue

of Tony his Hollywood horse)

and Christoffa Corombo exits

his Marigalante to go ashore

the since-mislaid isle Lucaya.

and careening revisions

I pilot the craft of poetics

without fatal collisions.

Verlaine went at Rimbaud

with a pearl-handled pistol

but the bone of contention

was only bisexual drivel.

Lewd Zeus is up to tricks.

I get it.

But for the Virgin is sex

less about lust

than chasing

what feels inaccessible?
“...He butters her up, caresses

her, tries to get her to give in..”
What flits through her mind?
Take your time: you have tons, thanks to this interminable line.
What does he represent to her?

How does he overwhelm her

keen appreciation that it's sin?

Incarnation - Muse's Advisory, Oct. 14 - Urania:
Divine prick

craning, erect,

under a tunic,

he gingerly

unlaces the front

of her kirtle,

luring her nipples

up too, galvanizing

her pussy.

Both smile, shy.

She breathes,

“Tell me your name.

Don't lie.”

His slight growl

“You know

exactly

who I am.”

          Are you aroused

          from telling it?

          Don't be ashamed,

          Those porta-potties?

          has a Screw taped

          underneath the lid.

          But hustle back.

          I never said

          I was insensible.

The Human Touch - Muse's Advisory, Oct. 15 - Zeus:
You saw it in the paper yesterday,

the man who claims to be a saint.

familiars met in unfamiliar forms.

funnels me back to my first dawn,

its rosy fingers on Mount Ida's breast—

Mother lifts a swaddled stone

to Father's infant-eating lips,

then spirits me off to be raised

by goats as the Kouretes dance

and batter shields with spears

so Cronus doesn't hear my cry—

I and my phallus collapse.

upon her delicate brown bush

and strokes my cheek until I sleep,

the only mortal who has seen me weep.

from his sockets, a saint?

What's so extraordinary?

Spirits pick everyone's pockets.

somewhere over by that tree,

so inspiration can't be far away.
I'm off now

to bring night down

on a lengthy to-do list

that would leave one of your

supercomputers sparking.

of Language poets!

Not much wittier than barking.
Melpomene:
My gut says the virgin doesn't make

it through the week:

he's make it seem an accident,

a capsized dingy on the Black River

beneath which a shovelnose sturgeon christens

the seed of a mussel

or they'll find her Plath-like

on the floor of the charcoal hutch

as desiccated and kippered

as a mummy of the Nile.
He's afraid to take the chance

she's pregnant with a male,

thanks to the old wive's tale

that Cowper-fluid babies mince.

at a 100 years of sobriety,

the only thing

that keeps me functioning is grit.

which goes to show that

reputation is a crock of shit.

Whatever I advise, do the opposite.

is bathwater under the bridge.

Spilled milk cannot go back into the breast;

resign yourself to titillating us

and doleful beads of sweat

above the raised brow of celebrity;

the glue that binds is selfishness.

your mouth with soap,

I knew you when you masked

your breath with peppermints,

sniffing the lips of screw-top booze;

and I can tell you from experience

that once the bloom is off that rose,

you've very little else to lose.

beyond that row of cypresses.

Real gods, real poets stir the pots

and dress their concrete wounds.

than in the gut? Go take a vat of mush

out there and watch them hold the Bible out

as if it were a plate.

This is no avocation for the sober

any more than those befuddled geese—

you see? up there? that undulating vee?—

should flap north in October.

La Musa Travolta (Swept Away) - Muse's Advisory, Oct. 18 - Polimnia:
To keep sharp we challenge

each other with rompicapi:
"You're a muse in St. Louis.

Who do you pick to write

Mark Twain or T. S. Eliot?"

big boys blow bugles,

beggars blow bum bags,

baboons blow bog bugs."

No one today believe in gods like Zeus

who prey on innocents.

Divinità moderna are all straight-laced,

never-married men, don't smoke or drink,

high-minded, sober to a fault,

inconcepibile as statutory rapists.
Tuttavia, avanti con la storia!:

"The god's head heavy

on her lap, he sobs himself to sleep..."
What does Miriam think?—

How did I turn a magnificent man

to a blubbering boy?

What's going to happen when he wakes?

And when my dad walks in the door?—
She hums a local lullaby?

O little town of Bethlehem

How still we see thee lie

Above thy deep and dreamless sleep

The silent stars go by....
The smell from the charcoal kilns

of the colliers on the hill genially

inspirits the odors steaming up

from Zeus's genitali—then he just

vanishes into thin air and it sinks in,

he isn't of the ordinary run of men.
But listen to me

getting carried away!

Please, you pick up

where you left off:

head in her fragrant lap..."

in the midst of the Virgin?

Who in Boeotia knows

one thing about a god?

Carl Jung's "Olympians:

Pastiche Psychology"

describes their sphinx-like

lack of scrutability.

on human thought, bridge

Classical and Christian faiths?

The Hebrew god picked up

obscene ideas from Zeus

during the Romans' rule—

another god-man made a deal

to make his mom immortal too?

and he lost his erection

prior to ejaculation.

Cowper's fluid

did the trick instead.

Whatever else occurred

was purely in his head,

or a manifestation

of sexual orientation.

Diatribe - Muse's Advisory, Oct. 20 – Erato to Tom:
Muse's Advisory, Oct. 20 – Erato to Tom:

Harmonia and Cadmus

and wishes her dad was home.

Her mom will rail and weep,

flush her with vinegar,

hustle her off to the ritual bath

and pay for two white doves

to forfend a conception;

but her dad will understand.

He once had counseled her,

Love offers you one fifty-fifty chance

for a half-decent man.
Maybe she wants to keep

this baby, be its mother,

maybe it's her ticket

to a more expectant life

than sitting waiting

to become another

charcoal-maker's wife.
She kneels and asks the Lord God

who rerouted Moses to Pharaoh,

A sharp sob catches in her throat.

sees how the light

inside the room has changed—

he's dreamt, and knows—

sees Miriam's tears,

puts her cheek to his breast

the poet 7th from the front

just got cold feet

and showed Urania

his soles.
The male Plath wannabe

she has her lips to now?

He'll be a one-hit

wonder, get a chapbook

published next July

that sinks like lead but leaves

a ripple in the literary pond:
in 60 years or so

his grand-niece

rediscovers it;

inspired, writes her way

into a sweet gig

teaching MFA's

at Indiana University,
and one of them

goes on to be

a quite successful

suicidal author

of three desperate poems

in the August 2080

what you can get.

The reading public

only wants so much.

A Shakespeare

more than once

in a millennium,

and there's a glut.

in service of no beauty but concinnity.

My memory's not chronological;

though humans move from step to step,

we're anagogical.
The midwife claims the hymen's partially intact;

a brew of poison herbs gives Miriam a bellyache

deep into the night—and that is that.

She cries. Both parents leave her be,

Joachim respectful, Hannah punishing.

The heel who knocked her up still hides his face...
Okay...so you've run out of juice?

What's smutty

you give us in detail,

then afterwards clam up like Zeus?

You're afraid what comes next

will be anticlimactic?

a scrap McPhee put by,

but never saw the light of day:
The Graves CO attests: no trace of name, rank, unit, or

date of death for 4 corpses dug up in the Aisne-Marne,

Somme, Saint-Mihiel, and Meuse-Argonne graveyards.

They're all draped with flags and trucked to city hall in

Châlons-en-Champagne, where a Sgt. Younger circles all

4 thrice, then sets white roses down on one, springs to

attention, and salutes the brand new Unknown Soldier,

who gets one night in Paris, thence by train to Le Havre

and aboard Olympia for trans-Atlantic cruise and reburial

with utmost ceremony in Arlington National Cemetery.

The 3 losing contestants will get their consolation prizes:

an eternity underground in Romagne-sous-Montfaucon

as the bugler plays variations on 'Better Luck Next Time.'
Thanks to a splendid nudge from Clio,

McPhee got close—the same prompt

Master Yunmen nursed into his koan:

When the tree withers and leaves fall

My full body exposed to golden wind.
You're ready to continue now, you think?

How great. Zeus what?

He comes around again a few weeks later—

What mama wouldn't cry her eyes out?

Joaquim's permissiveness had led to this!

Compassion,

all the rage with the Samaritans,

was neither godly

nor made sense.

It just turned weakness

to a bigger mess.
"I promised an angel years ago,"

she repeated to her sister Sobe.

"If God granted me a daughter,

I would give her to the Temple.

So how do I walk in and find her?

Up to her pupik in rock-roses!

I cry 'Miriam, who's been here?'

She says, 'God Himself, I swear.'

So that's how she repays me!"

"One-track minds—'A son! A son!'

I said, 'Elizabeth, you're young,'

but she, 'I'm not, my time has come.'

They're man and baby-crazed!

We can't stand guard. I have my shop

and you your eggs-and-butter stall.

They can't conceive of the disgrace!

If this keeps up, the two of us

will be ashamed to show our face!"

"Sobe, how nice you've come!

And how's my favorite niece?"
"Keeps babbling about a man,"

Sobe repeats. "Not man—a demigod!

Please talk to her, before it all

gets out of hand. She's fond of you."

he says. "Then, how we fear it

at the very instant they go near it!

Our Miriam's had visitations too.

Who are these phantoms skulking

in the woodpile—men we never see

but leave our daughters

with swelled eyes, or worse?

They're all the talk

down at the charcoal souk.

The Romans claim it's Zeus—

but then, their girls

have always been too loose."
"Husband! You think it's all a joke?

It could well be centurions!

We need a neighborhood patrol

with good thick sticks

to keep an eye on the back door

when we're at work."
"Who thrills our daughters' hearts,"

Joachim asserts, "is not deterred

by staves. I was a young man once

and, you'll recall, did quite a bit

of skulking both before and after

your great-uncle beat me senseless."

Who knew your inner Miriam

was so fast-talking, Tom?
...לבי עלץ ב יהוה...

My soul doth magnify the Lord,

though my womb rejecteth him.

He regardeth the low estate of his handmaiden,

yet hath done to me great things,

hath shown strength with his arm,

and scattered the proud in the firebolt of his heart,

hath stricken down the mighty from their seats

and filled the hungry with good things...
Okay, stop, hold that thought!

I can't just keep on scribbling.

I have to ask, What makes her think

her beau's a god after he left her

high and dry like that?

Is he the only man she ever met

who didn't reek of smoke?

What did he do or say to prompt

such faith, such love, such hope?
Or am I missing the point?

Is the lover who lingers suspicious?