Abusive Muse

Abusive Muse

When I look at you

I don’t know what to do

You are so bright

Singeing my eyelids

But I can’t look away

I’m forced to hold your gaze

Captivated in me

The closest a man can get

Impregnated

Not a madwoman in an attic

But a madman in a basement

I have to descend to your level

Spiral staircase so steep

I slip and descend into your deep

More rabbithole than hellhole

Satan is there for someone else

And so is the Mad Hatter

My muse is not a caffeinated 

Tipsy tea drinker teeter-totter

My muse has been known to

Crash tea parties with liquor parties

Saving the hardest stuff for himself

Among other things

He’s in the backroom

Amid a cyclone of cigarette smoke

Clouding an inscrutable face

But you can see the fiery grin

That makes women swoon

And cross their thighs

As he keeps them entertained

They want a better look to please him

He thinks they are cute when sedated

And inebriated

His eyes are windows

Obscuring dynamite explosions

Yet you wonder with curiosity

Just what goes on beyond those windowshades

Impeccable tar black tuxedo

The charismatic dynamo

From the masked dynamic temper

Emerges temperamental poetry

From an uneven temperament 

When I suppress him with medication

I give him an elevator

So he can work with me

For as long as I can stand him

You can only let something burn so much

Before getting out the fire extinguisher

But God help me if he’s fully functioning

Because he steals my steering wheel

Shit goes south from there

Not too far but far enough

To not want to go further

We have an uneven truce

I keep my white handkerchief

In my back pocket

Just in case he is feeling nasty

He wants to meet me in bars

Behind a fresh pool cue

I want to meet him at my computer

Among the chatter of keys

And the beat of my heart

Things don’t always work out

But we can’t fight out loud

I need the self-control to contain him.

To hide this strange Hyde

But I hear him in my audible brain

The cavern of my head

Loud and clear and quite insane

Wanting to wrest control of this ship

That I hope is headed for the sunset

But now headed towards the moon

Close enough I guess

With the midnight stars in our mind’s eye