The secret is

That when nothing comes,

You set out to make sure something comes.

You latch onto something,

Once as banal as a Coke for me,

And numbing you break through the torture

Of the dull pain in your head.

 

Study for hours.

Rest. You need lots of rest.

But for all purposes, do not let the muse come to you.

You must be like Romulus and Ramos

Founding Rome.

 

A muse is a jackal,

And there she is twirling about above you

Great and mighty.

She says, “Chase after me, my dear,”

With her slender face and pointed ears

Her beautiful face and burgundy hair;

Sexy she might seem bursting from the pools

Of imagination, with her slender form of youth at the age of love.

No, she will stray away from you.

Stray far away from you…

Therefore you must take her like a spoil of war;

Like we Jews who conquered the Philistines

And so many like them.

Then, she will abandon her lover

And follow after you.

Take her, beat through the headache

And the thunderous aches of war.

Conquer, enter into the city,

Or encamp around it,

And she will flee to you,

Seeing that you are stronger.

For a muse will not come to you…

She, rather, likes to be taken and swept away

By the passions of her loves.

 

Every conversation,

Every argument,

Every great debate,

Use it—

For there can be no great writer

Who waits for the muse to come.

She is like a lover in that regard.

You cannot wait for her,

But you must buck horns with her other suitors.

It is why I am not suited for love… I am afraid…

But I am suited for this profession.

Because I am afraid of the flesh and blood of woman

But the one in poetry I can readily chase.