NO MUSE FOR HENMEYER.

[dadio]

Henmeyer sets out pen and paper.
He has put the typewriter away out
Of sight. He wants to write as others
Wrote in the past, the pen between
Finger and thumb, the blank sheet of
Paper before him. No thumping of keys
Of the machine anymore. He wants to
Get close to his muse, wants to feel her
Move his hand across the page, wants
To sense her fingers move through his.
He sits. All is set, paper, pen and ink.
He sits and waits. The view of garden
Reveals trees, flowers in bloom; hears
Birds in song. He turns to see the Degas
Print on the wall. Bought second hand
In some store of junk. He waits. No muse.
A photograph on his writing desk has
Bukowski with a bottle of booze, smiling.
He scratches his chest, an itch, scribbles
A few lines. He stares and ruminates.
Not what he had in mind. He screws it
Into a ball, tosses it into the bin of waste.
Last night his mind was full of sentences,
Words and images to be neatly transcribed.
Now nothing. His fingers become bony bored,
They play around with the pen, idly doodle
Images. At least the typewriter made noise
Of being busy, the fingers could exercise
In some instant prose of nonsense across
A page and he could send it off to some
Magazine who’d think it profound because
Of that weirdness of prose. He sits and stares.
The guy upstairs plays a Bix Beiderbecke record.
The ghostly horn comes down through boards
And ceiling with pure tone and 1920s feeling.
No muse, no words, he puts down the pen.
Henmeyer will go downstairs to the girl with
The lisp and have coffee, talk of novels he has
Nearly written and poems left half done, and
She may listen for a while and then suggest
They fuck as a comfort or just for artistic fun.