Sunday, July 20, 2008

Nurses ARE muses, as you know full well...

Thank you for the rich replies to yesterday's tale, one of which stated: 'Nurses ARE muses, as you know full well...' Yes, they have been good friends to me throughout my life - grounded and sensual. Only as an adult poet (that's often a conflict in terms) have I realised the Muse(s) is not some airy fairy, mythical goddess, but living breathing people who inspire a poet to think beyond the mundane, be it in a highly charged sensual response to the perceived or a heightened awareness of the spiritual. I think it was Robert Graves, of 'White Goddess' fame, who said a poet always must be in love, and for this he had various women other than his wife. Maybe I've got the guy wrong, or the story wrong, but any infatuation with another woman in my writerature tends to lend itself to schoolboyish poems about their breasts and eyes/thighs, and their mock-heroic unobtainableness. Luckily I soon notice this and throw such poetic reveries in the bin. (Perhaps my doctor is a muse: she is middle-aged, mother, caring, well-grounded, and laconic, with a wry Aussie sense of humour. Any doc who'll prescribe salmon for every meal is a friend of mine!)

Speaking of the 'highly charged sensual', among the viagra spam subject headings this morning was this unintentional pun or play on words: Member Listing. Huh! Listing to starboard, perhaps!

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