The Muse's Advisory typed & spellchecked by Tom Riordan

Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,

Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss

The second burden of a former child. - Shakespeare

This, like everything else, is a work of imagination. Everything in it is used fictitiously, including names, places, etc. It is intended for recreational use only.

Mom & Dad, you will NOT like this book and don't have to read it. My bowling team didn't and we're still buds. No one should read it—seriously, please—who holds religious or other beliefs they don't want misrepresented &/or demeaned.

Advance Praise

The Pushcart Prize, Lambda Literary Award & Nobel Committee agree:

“...Muse's Advisory is too hot to handle without a condom...”

“...throws open the doors of transcendence & other shangri-las but heroically resists walking through any of them! There is still fun to be had right here.”

“...runs barefoot through the pasture, heroically stepping in bullshit & drawing mustaches & goatees on the sacred cows with a permanent marker.”
Acknowledgments

Thanks to the Jewish holidays, there is no Foreword & no Preface. New York City's alternate side of the street parking regulations, as always, are suspended.

you poets have no one to blame

but yourselves for this long line.
It's not like we can fabricate

more wisdom or beauty at will

just to meet an increasing demand.

Such things take time.

You understand.
Old-timers made liberal use

of hemlock to ensure their access

to us, four or five times a month.

But don't fear.

Unless you wilt from the sun

or collapse from dehydration,

I'll see to it you get your audience:
the quickest, faintest whisper

in one ear that only someone

starved for something never

heard before will hear.

to the head of the line

our personalized service

guarantees your inspiration

is a perfect fit,
a once-in-a-lifetime

opportunity!

number came up late one night

during his busboy shift

at the Wardman Park.

his pastry and the poem

a plug of prune got stuck

in Vachel Lindsay's throat,

with her index finger

popping from of his mouth:

When I first lit on his TV set,

he leapt and lunged at me

with a rusty fly-swatter!

he brushed back,

until I whispered in his ear:
Rent. Food. Miller High Life.

Pall Malls. White Owls.

Child support. $100 a month!
He gave me props in

'Betting on the Muse':

plump new poem that bawls

or coos its way to print.

Become a Byron on your own?

No. You'll learn soon

enough we are the best

and only game in town.

The Sincerest Form - Muse's Advisory, Sept 22 – Clio:
You who pander to posterity

as successfully as Nathan Hale

inspire me:
though green behind the ears

when facing Extreme Unction

at the New York city gallows
felt no inkling of compunction

about plagiarizing Cato

he'd just read at Yale:
"What a pity it is

That we can die but once to serve our country";

several generations later

from George III's old playbook

that every slave

held by rebellious foes—

and only those—

cribbing the less two-faced Jeremiah's

"Turn the other cheek."
Pull out the stops!

Beg, borrow, steal

with all the cheek

that you can muster—

of dead losers

who turned lovely phrases

but no profits of éclat.

Nothing's new under the sun.

The sincerest form of flattery

is looking out for number one.

both preconditions for renown,

but though you loudly toot your horn,

you'll want one sidelong bag of wind

to fan you

both while you live, and subsequent.

Scots murderer and slaver,

who embarked to Roanoke,

threw in with rebels also hunted

by the Crown,

pirated a cargo of woolen coats off Labrador,

inked

his first heroic boast—

and appended the alias 'Jones.'

the admirals whisked him

off to France

where he no sooner

disembarked, but won

the war again—

for wine

Cannon-battered, the white flag

of Bonhomme Richard flown,

he turned on the English who'd ferried

his men aboard—
I demand you surrender to us!—
soon revised to
I may sink but be damned if I strike!—
about halfway to the gallant cry

Teddy Roosevelt would later cite—

face down at No. 42 Rue de Tournon

and was buried in St. Louis Cemetery

for Alien Protestants.

In 1905 an unidentified coffin was dug up

to serve in Roosevelt's campaign

for U.S. Navy appropriations,

to the Academy at Annapolis

where the dead Scot's reputation

was finally gilded with oration

as immortality was earned.

the name of John Paul Jones

now sweetens every school-kid's tongue

in every corner of your stupid land.

but never read a line.

to fan you

while you live, and subsequent—
Euterpe:
That might be me.
As much stems

from your vintner's stature,

backer's pockets,

vendor's savvy,

as your vine.
Forget landscapes,

zephyrs,

your angel, John Paul Byron,

than your wine.

Caveat - Muse's Advisory, Sept. 24 - Calliope:
If you really had something

earth-shaking to say,

would you put it in a poem?
Einstein dipped into Baudelaire

but saw that Imagism didn't suit

Kennedy thought the Cuban Missile Crisis

might fit nicely in haiku

but Jackie just said Jack,

and he knew.

I haven't discouraged you?

Okay, move up in line.

Patience is liberty's grease.

You're now 2,868,232.
From way up at the front,

Homer looks back blind,

the thing he's proud of most

not Iliad or Odyssey,

but having kept his hair.

I stick a carving fork in it

and see what I can get it to confess.

The juice is several inches in.

The facts are but the skin."
Polimnia:
Silvana, Delia, Maya—Zucchero—

stop squabbling over the flowers!

You cut it out right now or

straight into the trash!

yank them out smooth and quick,

apply your lips, and suck!

Don't worry about what comes out.

Mussolini pledged that the line

for ice cream would move faster,

but your tutti-frutti great men aren't

worth the milk they're made from.
Clio:
Sister, speaking of not growing up,

when are you dropping this Italian thing?

Are you ashamed of your Bœotian roots,

cling to a fantasy that long-lost Pop

is actually Marcello Mastroianni?

when imagination's mirror

offers faces that are fairer?

Orientation - Muse's Advisory, Sept. 26 - Melpomene:
I bear another "omen,"

one nightmare of my own—

a sadistic dentist, what else?—

and one of my sister Euterpe's.

in this line of work

of ending up

like poor poets themselves

tragically chasing praise.
I stroke her hair and coo,

The genre's changed.

Since Jethro Tull grew gray,

combining flute with singing is

hopelessly passé.
You see that colossal heap

of myrtle and laurel branches,

snippets implanted

in a million poets' ears

who failed to summon stanzas

and eventually gave up?

but the smoke of dactyls stirred

great Zeus's allergies,

and clouds rained dousing tears.

from the new lines at the top,

fill them with humus from the base,

and then haul it to the Thespiae haymarket

to sell it for compost.
You see? As the Pythia foretold,

The road down from the muse's

plinth is sparkling with gold.

Zsa Zsa's Sentence - Muse's Advisory, Sept. 27 - Terpsichore:
The dyke prosecutor mocked her for craving attention.

Zsa Zsa huffed

from the courtroom in tears. Yes, she had punched out the Beverly Hills cop

who pulled her Rolls over—tags expired, no license, open bottle

of Kecskemeti vodka.

Yes, she said of the man who testified

against her, "He's only a little punk with a hairdo like a girl,"

and of her wrist-slap of a sentence, "If anyone didn't know me

they at least know now I'm white and rich."

That last bit I made up myself

you don't find spirits in a bottle, in rotten meat between the teeth,

or even—as in her case—in the breath from a crib death concussion.
"It's what you open the vein in your soul to." She is the tragic muse.

I circulate much lighter ichor. I'm the hum-a-day one. Zsa Zsa?

I like her! I like big tits! And I like hearing my lies on the news.

Pocket Change - Muse's Advisory, Sept. 28 - Erato:
Mister, you want to buy some gum?

An hard-boiled private eye paperback,

all empty calories, to pass the time?

Hey? Something a little spicier than that?

helps us make ends meet

and compensates us

for hard pro bono work.

We've other mouths to feed than yours.

Our toddlers, should we ever procreate,

cannot eat art;

and since we don't travel much,

can't even follow in our footsteps:

so there'll be tuition.

And we're the single occupation

Obama's healthcare bill forgets.
I have to go up front

and start my shift,

pricking the ears

of some lyrical johns.

Good luck to you.

Most writers say

it's worth the wait.

A few complain it's all hot air—

you can't predict.

The Ave's short,

but it's still shrift.

will come by soon

with information

about protocol, how to address us

when your number's up—

You don't touch us, we touch you—

that sort of thing.

Then Euterpe's famous teaser,

“How to Make the Most

of a Wisp of Inspiration.”
I'd like to go back to school myself

one of these days, but when?

Our 10% of your royalties, pre-tax,

buys less and less each year.

Call Mary Oliver grabby if you like,

but it's pretty much her oar alone,

since Rob Frost's prostate went.

that keeps this gondola afloat.
But I try to think about the future—

a Golden Age around the corner,

a regular income,

the revival of rhyme.

Saturday's mourner is Sunday's heir.

So brother, could you spare a dime?

Before we clarify how things are done

here on Mount Helicon, one

caution about slipshod vocabularies.

If you want to script a climax

you should know exactly

how to scratch your lover's itch:

if you can't caress

the sweet spot of an idiom

you have no business

putting hands on it.

According to the Google oracle

as masculine pronouns

for the unknown gender retreats

he/she, s/he, one and he or she

all fall prey to the singular they.
"You're scaring them!" Erato cries.

"Nobody wants to hear your peeves!

"No poet with a dick between their thighs

is going to consult Ask Jeeves!"

but they will never coalesce

without both discipline and diligence.

Don't waste our time and yours.

We're busy women;

mercy is not what we dispense.

The Christian's Almanac of Daily Tests of Faith:

In the bathtub wash your butt before your hair!

Push your stroller into the crosswalk as if drivers will stop!

like communicants, eyes shut,

hands folded, tongues extended.

Does that strike you as ridiculous?

I'm not supposed to tell you this

but couldn't you be self-inspired:

grab the bull by the horns and shake its head

till augury or gore fell out?

You might get gored yourself

but isn't that a better tale than

"How I Stood Awaiting Dawn"?

Tom Eliot worked at Lloyd's

and Wally Stevens at Equitable Surety

and Hartford Accident & Indemnity.

They labored in the vineyard of the bored

and you can press the juice

from the poems they produced

into Emily Dickinson's brass thimble.

I'm sorry, my dear voluptuary,

but I'd actuarially prefer a symbol!

They stood in line, you know:

they passed where you pass now

while in each district of the earth

ravines and chasms swallowed

bolder men who bolder wrote.

Sometimes we coax them

into mischief, failure, fire.

Serendipity - Muse's Advisory, Oct. 1 - Clio:
On this day in history Mao Zedong unveiled his new People's Republic

and Henry Ford his Model T and it was a darn good thing

the Pacific Ocean squatted in-between or
instead of one brigade of blue suits after a long march

killing 400 Tiananmen students

pummeling seven trade unionists

on the River Rouge Overpass—
before the desire for luxury and options buried both—
there might have been real trouble.

Monolith - Muse's Advisory, Oct. 2 – Urania to Tom:
Gibson struck out 17 at the start of the '68 Series.

Wilson had his stroke, Warren swore in the first black Justice, and Beagle

So much happens every day

around the galaxy, the Chinese Zodiac a radiating

sun of wedges where a date's occurrences might all occur at once:

jade-smooth bamboo bones, sugar cane and teenage Japanese red maples,

shape-shifters disguised as this or that to get a better look at us

anchored in the stream or diving off and swimming for the oozing shore

unspooled ourselves, then to unravel three silk threads, snares masquerading

as entities in human history with faces and emotions

and futures that can't say if they're available to occur or not.

done?

I've nothing against white sheep, but the black ewe with the nappy ringlets

is the one I'll hurry back for when the hillside trembles or the Medes come.

The sooner you learn that a spark is nothing more than a spark, the better.

as she's driving me?

pacing up and down gesticulating and rehearsing?

the deities with better attitudes have managed to accomplish!

How metalwork has progressed! Grain cultivation! Medicine! War!

Did you read, just today, about motion-capture 3-D imaging or

about Georges Charpak's multi-wire proportional tracking chamber?

But every poll shows large majorities who think history and poetry

Folks don't understand that, in the day, they sniped

that Gershwin only reached the limelight

on the coattails of Fred and Adele Astaire

and Dr. King was demagoguery made flesh.

Even Homer when he blindly groveled

at the campfires of the Greeks

was poked at with the glowing-hot tips

of uncouth warriors' shish-kebob sticks.
Prophets are dropped and lost like nutless husks

and I'm the only one who knows how many they are,

where they lie moldy, and the greatness in them.

Ennui - Muse's Advisory, Oct. 4 – Clio:
Abe Lincoln views a balloon ascend today.

Sputnik is in space, 184 pounds (your weight),

and Bessie Smith's abandoned in a grave

till Janis Joplin finally has a headstone made.

A white pine dies.

A black pine sprouts.

A black pine dies.

A white pine sprouts.

A white pine dies.

A black pine sprouts.

A black pine dies.

gets nothing but tongue in their ear

and my usual middle finger.

One Hand Washes - Muse's Advisory, Oct. 5 – Melpomene to Tom:
How does it feel to be in line

for our 2,780,826th next

sliver of inspiration?
Have I read Zen and the Art

of Motorcycle Maintenance?
Dude, he was one of mine!

I still remember that guy, he was a trip!

When he finally got to me, he said,

No thanks, don't want any help,

just came to stand in line

where I could have pure boredom,

I want to sometimes write and sometimes not,

once in a while have a good day,

once in a while have a horrible day.

Do you know Chris never liked that book?

He told me, 'Dad, I had a great time

on that trip. All the rest of it was false.'
Our father Zeus went right after him.

Zen & the Art of Now Let's See What You Say

When Your Dear Son's Been Stabbed to Death

Right Outside Your Groovy Zen Center.
Results matter. Wouldn't you rather walk away

with “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower” in your notebook

or “The Things that Make a Soldier Great”?
Both those writers got the same hint—No. 41,

one of the best.

if no one cuts in line—

and no one had the balls to stop him—

the same one Coleridge got

for “The Garden of Boccaccio.”
You look like a man who might also profit

from a new service we're offering.

It lets you riffle through the discards

while you're waiting: near-successes:

“Kubla Khan,” for one.

He didn't see it to completion

but that doesn't mean the inspiration sucked.

It could just be, his opium ran out.