I would love to have a muse, I think
faced with a blank page
or a knotty prompt
she would be there in a blink
with ideas and inspiration
chewing the cud, I imagine
her gifts to me quite gratis
she would require
no acknowledgement
of our collaboration
a relationship too good to be true
Why are muses generally “she”
or is it in opposition to
the poet’s gender
– opposites attract and all that
can I pay to go on a course
to get my gal
is there an Agency for muses
that pairs you up like speed dating
could AI write me the perfect
letter of application – guaranteed
to find the perfect match
a muse for life – no shallow fling
here today
abandoned to blank page
tomorrow
Instead, if I choose
to accept this prompt
or if I wake with an itch
that only the laying down
of poetry can sooth
I face each piece of poesie
on my own, flying solo
never knowing where the words
will take me on today’s adventure
but within a moment
the idea arrives
the point of departure
then buckle up for the ride
here goes blue sky thinking…
© Andrew Wilson, 2026
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Grace in Meeting the Bar: Critique and Craft, brings us a last prompt before our two-week Summer break and its a doosie – an Ars Poetica that goes to the heart of our craft of writing poems…
Love this, Andrew, and I’m quite sure it is ‘opposition’ to one’s gender.
I’m not sure, but I don’t think I have a muse. (grinning)
“I face each piece of poesie
on my own, flying solo
never knowing where the words
will take me on ”
For a Muse you once had to know the love of a troubadour for his lady as in Petrarch and Laura, Robert Graves and his (toxic) Laura not to mention Leonard Cohen and all his ladies – but hey, we females rely on the Muse in a different way – by association perhaps but never think you’re flying solo Andrew – that’s far too lonely a journey even for a humanist! 😉
Thank goodness for knotty prompts to get us over the blank page, Andrew, although a muse is sometimes welcome. I love the thought of an agency for muses, although I think of it more as a poetry detective agency. But ‘flying solo never knowing where the words will take me on today’s adventure’ is so much more exciting.