Ignition

"O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend /The brightest heaven of invention,/ A kingdom for a stage, princes to act /And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!" --William Shakespeare, The History of Henry V, Prologue, Scene 1, lines 1-4

Gloating about being good guards the gate, barring you from being great

All of the habits you have formed to please the common swarm conspire

To prevent your imagination from melting the cold cage of custom

All the clever turns of phrase and the descriptions of her lambent gaze

Lock the portal to that strange dimension where tension spawns invention

Do not believe their sunny praise: whatever is relatable is contemptible

The familiar is supposed to help you cast the spell; do not make a pet of it

A war against cliche must be joined; your old, trusted companions are foes

Bind your raw ribs into a ladder: mix mad matter with measured meter

Let everything be kindling: your febrile frustration and seething spite

Understand that being misunderstood unlocks the burning door

Beyond it you will be understood by the only mind that matters: hers

The incandescent, irascible muse: insatiable, impatient, scalpel sharp

Ravenous for fresh offerings to scoff at and ignite with her incendiary

Laughter and molten eyes--she sees your secret, searing fears

Your bashful blunders and scrambling haste earn her withering distaste

Soon, she will demand that you begin writing again, by the light she is

Patience and pity are as foreign and feckless to her as your dim doubts

She waits for you to forge a perfect, blazing diadem, no costume jewel

If it suits mere mundane minds, she sparks it up for sport to watch it burn

What she demands is the destruction of the devices you depend upon

Your eulogy for images and symbols that have been amiable allies

A tomb for tattered, tired themes that faithfully trot out to titillate

The illiterate and bore her blind; she can only be excited by audacity

The formula you found to make good medicine, she recognizes

As a recipe for mediocrity's feast and your dreams' gaunt starvation

The pyre of your sophomoric songs lights the way to your apotheosis

She does not merely know this truth: she is this truth, turning her blazing

Baleful, beautiful eyes upon you, you pompous pretender, you eloquent

Fraud! What will you do to deserve her desire? What will you conjure from

Your haughty hoard of coy catchphrases and precious ploys?

No table will be set upon a roar by your fossilized figurative language!

Write to strip what is disguised as obvious shockingly naked and new

Syllables you alone were born to suffer and strive and swiftly sew

Out of the fabric of your own scarred, sunburned skin; without guile

Or hubris, parade private pain in public; let them bathe in your

Sordid sweat and taunted tears; she scalds all hiding places

She spotlights shame and parches pride

Abjure deceit, profane a sanctified conceit

Spurn sleep, drink deep of hot, iconoclastic ink--

Ignite!