A Question of Wil and John

A cold wind bites

This hot summer day

To chill my mind to

The temperature of creativity.

Oh angel of poetry come down

And dance upon my fingers

Ripple through my imagination

As the wind darts

Among the leaves.

Wil and John, was it the same

For you, this agony of

Inspiration?  A fountain

Flowing freely, coursing

Prose and power out through

Your quills, quivering to

Release its bountiful crop of

Lyrics and lines,

Bloody wrath and grateful ruin?

Or a slow and ponderous

Progression of toil,

Wrestling the words kept

Locked in your beautiful

Castles of the mind,

High and inaccessible as

Everest to all but the brave

Hilarys of lore who would

Vanquish the foe

Of uninspiration?

Did you ever strive the Herculean

Labor, to unblock your

Writing, to force the wit to

Reveal its glory, to conjure

Meaning and imagery though

All hell barred the way?

Demons laugh, the lesser men who

Scorn literature as folly and

Uselessness.  They are men

Without chests, or spirits, rather,

Best avoided and pitied, not mocked

Or mollycoddled (Zounds!  What a word!)

But never tolerated or understood.

It is our quest, our curse, that we are

Entrusted to Understand; a worse

Fate than to chase after windmills.

Better to chase the wind first, and as

Easy to catch.

Yet onward English soldiers, the battle is not

Done till all bow at the feat of men

Like Wil and John.

It is the same, the tides of the Muse

Ebb and flow, filling us when we least

Expect, yet reluctant even when

We call upon her music to sing in our wits.

Perhaps, John, you did not suffer as I; perhaps

You tamed her, brought her to heel and

Loosed her at your leisure.  I’m

Sure you did, Wil.  Such power and

Passion was ne’er before transcribed in

The tongues of men, and ne’er since.

Between you two, she must have worn herself to

Tatters, though perhaps some other

Inspirer had a finger in it.  For you,

John, maybe the stuttering prophet; for you,

Wil, Aphrodite or her Father Eros

(How you jump about between them,

Scoundrel!). 

All’s said and done, though not of you.

The fever breaks methinks.  Still you remain silent,

Haughty from the great Beyond.

But Beyond What, I wonder?  A matter for

Another time, sure.  Are you smiling down upon

Me, even now?  Or do you frown? 

Are you  the muses now?

An original composition by David Smith.