THE MUSE'S HEAD

I wrote

no one read my treatise.

I painted

no one came to look at my dreams.

I spoke

no one listened to my oratory.

I acted, I danced

no one recognized my talent, my work.

My suffering was silent,

My heart screamed in sickness,

My thoughts hurt in dark delirium,

I had no comfort and “they” had no sympathy!

In my anger…my fragmented, salacious anger

I took the muse’s head!

Suddenly everyone began to speculate!

They wrote, they spoke, they looked

For my excess and me.

My divine career began.

Only then did I feel their devotion

I hid the head in the forest

Planted on a mountain

Within a cold cave.

The muse began to mutter in astonishment

To speak because she was unhappy.

I brought her sisters to her…eight of them

In obeisance to her demands.

I did what she asked of me.

It was a gesture, an offering.

They called it a heinous butchery!

They called it murder!

They called it historical!

Did not my talent demand recognition?

They looked for the muses but never found them.

I hear them chant secrets

Within my cell

Now

They

Want

My

Head…