MUSING


Artists (and poets) sometimes describe the Muse as the “paranormal nature of inspiration”. It is thought to be a faculty that resides in the realm of the unconscious. G.C. Jung called this entity Philemon. “Philemon,” he contended, “represented a force which was not myself. I observed clearly that it was he who spoke, not I. I understand there is something in me which can say things I do not know and do not intend, things which may be directed against me.” This “paranormal” is the fertilizing agent in true imaginative conception…………………………………


This is no opium-filled vision
of lotus eaters,
but the dream of the ancients.
This dream naked in its slumber
becomes fully clothed when it trespasses
into the night of my wakefulness.
Like Jung who found Philemon
and Rimbaud who discovered an other,
I awake to find my dreams real.
This is he who treads
on the arc of a time unseen,
inhabits the place of space unformed,
yet occupies the whole circle
of my knowing and unknowing.
This is the voice that explodes
into the sky of my conscience
and gathers clouds of verses
saying things I do not know,
speaking words I do not intend.
These words are no dead letters,
no modern hieroglyphics
embalmed in an ancient scroll.
These are words that live on
in the winds that romp
across the lines of my face
and dance to the rhythm
of the longings of my heart.
These words live
a life greater than their own
a life bigger than my own,
I tell you, this dream is real.
And one day, I the dreamer
shall fade into the infinity
of its stunted shadow.
But my dream will be the
exalted banner in the sky,
immortalised in the reason
of my being.