Child of the Muse

I am warm wool socks.

I am soft, faded cotton sweatpants.
I am a kneaded old t-shirt. 
I am soft black fleece.
I am a black tangle of beard.
I am a matte of curls.

I am a glass of cold sparkling water with lime.
I am a large mug of peppermint tea.
I am a glass of full-bodied red wine.
I am a good book curled up on a dark autumn day.

I am as real as my adventure.
As real as the shadow cast of the hooks on the ceiling.
I am as real as my imagination allows me to be.

I am Picasso's shaded muse.
I am Dali's waxed mustache.
I am Van Gough's broad brush strokes.
I am Hemingway's last cigar.

I am a knight-errant of a rare quality and variety,
but I am not alone.  Never alone.
I am a child of the Muse; I am the muse.
Cervantes & Quixote 
Alpha and Omega.

The Muse of the Kingdom of Academia

And then she returned in full grandeur:

For a while I wondered of the Muse's whereabouts. I wrote off her return, as I was stationary and busy with school work. I didn't know where to look for her, but should have known that she would find me on a day of respite. I should have known that even her still water runs infinitely deep.

Crowned in resplendent glory, behold the Muse of the Kingdom of Academia. She looks out from above a white ivory tower, and bears a ball-point scepter. Rivers of black ink rush below, and lap up against the ivy-covered walls of her castle.

She comes to me in fits and starts, her white-paper wings envelop me and as she fills my dreams with ink. Her diction is unrivaled and her linguistic glory infinite, but she clouds my head with ideas. Then she leaves me adrift as a lonely fisherman in a vast sea of ink, trying to fish out the ideas with nary a net. Or perhaps I am gaining the net with my education, and learning to fish with the tools of public diplomacy- a fisher of ideas.

I realize it will be years before I am offered entry into her divine kingdom, but I will proceed down the long, winding path, for it is a pilgrimage I must take.

The Muse of the Ivory Tower

She returns to me, but in a different form. She has changed, she has been refined. Our angelic Muse of thought and inspiration still is with a gentle touch of soft, supple ideas; the effulgent glow of new thoughts; of paradigm shifts. Yet with her gentle contours gone, she comes in greater fury and with greater purpose. She has a harder edge that comes with knowledge gained and perspectives broadened. The lattice gold armor that adorns her has sharpness that cuts and barbs of creativity that pierce the touch. She is mounting up for new pursuits across new horizons. She is being reborn under the weight of borne ideas. She is still so mercurial, so hard to hold onto. I feel her come, and her warmth envelopes me. I feel her go, as I struggle to get her on my page. As always, she leaves me staring into the oblivion of a blank, pallid page. She wrestles herself away from me, leaving me with something that barely reflects her initial splendor, yet leaves me satisfied nonetheless.

The Muse of Mexico

She has bells of shells on her feet that herald her presence, but they lay silent as she sits still. With silver bangle serpents that snake up her brown, sunkissed skin, she sits chanting over an offering of palabras as the smoke of incense burns around her. A feathered headdress of plumes sits on her long black hair, as she stares out of jet black eyes and past her aquiline nose.

As the Aztec sun burns above, the Muse looks down from above a stone pyramid across the vast span of history that fills this land. She blows on a conch shell horn to summon all that has been lost. Skeletons of the Dia de Los Muertos dance around her temple as butterfly catchers paddle around the moat that sits below her stone ziggernaut.

She scoffed at the human sacrifices that were offered her way, and preferred to accept the gift of ideas. She gave that gift back to the tribes who kept their history and heritage close. She colored the dreams of the shaman as they deciphered the visions that filled their heads. She filled the scream of the priest Hidalgo who declared Mexico's freedom. She painted with Diego as he illuminated the history of this land on the canvas of walls; our dear Muse gave poor Frida the crush of ideas that plagued her soul and covered her canvas. She remembers the time that was and sees the time to come in this mysterious, enigmatic land.

Borges´ Muse and my own

When i speak of the Muse, i know i am not the only one who hears her. When i sing her praises, i know i am not the only one who has shuddered at her gift of enlightenment. Borges felt her. He wrestled with her, as Jacob wrestled with the Archangel Gabriel; like i fight to hold on to her mercurial glory.

He knew the tricks she played on the virgin white paper; the questions she hid under the cloak of dark ink; the answers she illuminated with radiant grandeur. Through his work, I feel a kinship through Borges to our beloved Muse.

Together, they sipped coffee with dulce de leche under Cafe Tortoni´s luminous stained glass. In despondency, they wandered the villa miserias, searching the slums for reasons to explain life´s inequities. In silence, they pondered in Palermo´s park of cats. In solitude, they sat among the angels and decadent mausoleums of Recoleta´s cemetery. Together, under the fecund full moon that light Buenos Aires´purple night sky, they tangoed across the River of Silver.

Borges has reached the Muse´s golden kingdom- the paradise for all scribes. I still have many miles still yet to be crossed, many adventures still yet to be undertaken and many words still yet unwritten before the same invitation is extended to me. Until then i wait, and pour over his texts for clues to understand her divine secrets.

The Muse of the Argentine

I was looking for her in all the wrong places, and should have known she would find me when she was ready. I should have known I would never find her among the florid, ornate buildings, or the busy avenues of commerce.

Rather, our dear muse is found sitting in the Plaza De Mayo, sipping maté with the mothers who protest for news of their sons and husbands that are part of the ¨desapareacidos¨ who the regime carried off into the night. I should have know to listen for her in the winds sweeping off the pampas, and in the songs of the guachos that fill the nights. Yet I was blinded by that which glitters, and the poisoned materialism that infects and corrupts.

Our Muse has been here for some time. She came with the poor immigrants who came with nothing and sought a better life across the seas: she helped paint La Boca´s corrugated iron houses with the bright paint that remained leftover from the long voyage. Our dear Muse filled the voice of Eva Duarte, and Evita sang and rallied for the decamisados, the shirtless poor workers who were plagued by inequality. She whispered to Borges, and he filled his pages with the graces this enigmatic city holds. She accompanied the young medical student named Ernesto as Ché ventured north, and witnessed the injustices that this continent holds.

She stood with the despareacidos, as the brutal junta took them from their families. More recently, the Muse banged pots and pans with those who rallied in the streets as the financial crisis stole from the people all that they had worked hard for. She remains here with those who are forced to pick through garbage every night to, trying collect enough scraps to earn their daily bread.

The Muse of the Argentine has been here, but I couldn´t hear her till now. But I have found her, and with a little luck, her mercurial glory will remain with me in this city of a thousand splendid spires.

The Muse of the Caribbean

And soon thereafter, she returns. Her sweet words come singing in my ear, on the vibe of a pulsating reggae beat.

Under the plum clouds that cling to, and roll off the majestic Blue Mountains, the Muse´s Caribbean Kingdom lies. Through the lush green jungle, her old pastel blue and white colonial abode is found. Wiry bombaclaat rasta sentinels with natty dreads and wood-handled machetes stand guard, but over a blessed peace offering, they let me pass to find our lady of the Caribbean, our Queen of the Muse.

Under banners of green, yellow and black tapestries, she sits on a bed of pillows. Her natty black dreads lay lightly on her dark shoulders, and she is wrapped in robes of rasta royalty. Her green eyes peer out through a plume of silver smoke, as she sips her june plum juice. With a natural mystic of reggae harmony flowing through the air, she sits in silence. She takes a deep breath, and sings out in a crisp voice the same music that filled the hearts of so many of this troubled island paradise.

It was the words the sang in the hearts of the Treelawny Maroons, as they escaped under a cover of darkness into the dense jungle, away from the British colonial slave masters. They were the words that Marcus Garvey proclaimed as he told his fallen people of their deep-rooted pride. They were the melodies, pure and true, that serenaded Robert Nesta, and that the saintly Bob Marley filled the Trenchtown ghettos. Her message is as simple as it is true: One Love, One Heart.

Desert Kingdom of the Muse

Amid the sweeping golden sands, the Muse resides in her desert kingdom. In a palmyra-filled oasis, she can be found in tents made of dyed sheep's wool. Under the fecund full moon, she sits cross-legged on a rug beside the fire, sipping bitter black coffee. The Muse is in a jetblack abbayya, that covers her to her golden-jeweled wrists and her henna-covered hands stretch out from its black sleeves. Sequins adorn her cloak, and the sequins sparkle like the stars above her. Her honey-date colored eyes are lined in black kohl, and peer out from behind the black veil. Her black hair peeks out from under the black crape, and a braid falls down her back.

The multitude of stars shine above, and feel as numerous as the sands below her. Her beduin guards sit next to her; their desert songs fill the air as they are carried by the night winds, and the beat of the coffee mortar supplies the simple rhythm.

Her camels' cargo is laden with ink and ideas, as her caravan makes its way slowly from oasis to oasis. She has no time for the cities being built in the sands; the Muse knows that the sands will one day retake them like so many other desert cities that were forgotten.

It was the Muse that filled the Nabateans with the radiant pink and peach dreams to carve their stone capital Petra, and then hid it behind a veil of sand for two millennia. She is the one who fills the pilgrims with perseverance as they trod on their long journey.

But take heed, my children, for the Princess of Fear holds a mighty empire here. From a desert fortress, she stares out over her vast terrain and her minion of followers. She poisons the minds with ignorance and arrogance. I hear her vile words pouring from the mouths of too many good people. Some days, it leaves me feeling so hollow to hear her plagued ideas brandished like swords, and I feel this sword cutting on both sides of the divide. It makes my heart hurt and fills me with anguish that I can hardly decribe.

The Princess of Fear helped cut down King Abdullah as he made his ways to his prayers, as his grandson and future regent Hussein stared on. She punished Anwar Sadat's courage with a hail of bullets. She is the one who stokes the fire of the mobs; she is the martyrs' false courage.

The Queen of the Muse and the Princess of Fear are locked in an eternal clash across these lands, and it is a battle I'm afraid the the Princess of Fear may have the upper hand. The Muse illuminates the desert with her knowledge, but I fear her sun is at its eclipse, and everything is becoming dark. But in the holiest of holy lands, hope springs forever eternal and will remain there to light even the darkest hour. From the pages of Leo Africanus, the Muse left a little note and a tidbit of truth that I will end on:

"When you were a child, didn't you speak out the truth that the oldest ones kept secret? Well, you were right then. You must find the time of innocence in yourself again, because that was also the time of courage."

Kingdom of the Princess of Fear

The Queen of the Muse whispered a warning in my ear, she said beware of the Princess of Fear. While I have written extensively on the Muse’s Kingdom, I have yet to address the Kingdom of the Princess of Fear. She too holds court. Born of the same mother as the Queen of the Muse, but a father that bore the mark of Cain, the Princess of Fear traded her soul for black power.

Her kingdom is found across the black rivers of poison. It is a dark land, without light or hope. In her fields, slaves toil picking bitter fruits and poison harvests. In her gardens wander the lost souls of intoxicated addicts, who lazily doze under weeping-willow trees. Her land is the paradise reached by the zealots and suicide bombers.

Past the winged-furies that fly overhead, and the armed guards with scimitars and damascene blades that stand on her gates and guard her palace, the Princess is down a long, deserted hall. She sits upright on a black granite throne. Her long black hair flows down her back, with a golden tiara bejeweled with blood diamonds sitting delicately on her head. Around her neck sits a necklace of nails, that drapes delicately over her collar. Her black kohl-stained green eyes pour over black-inked manuscripts of plots and ploys that will further her aims; she wages her clandestine war with her weaponry of vices.

The Princess of Fear reaps intolerance and sows hatred. She has much sway, and she silences the best while filling the worst with passionate zeal. She imbues the thieves with quickness and the cons with cunning. She makes men weak with jealousy, and fills their hearts with envy. I saw a glimpse of her in the eyes of two men coming to fisticuffs over a 5 rupee pen.

The Princess of Fear gave twisted biblical verse to the slave masters of the Confederacy. She is the creator of castes, the architect of apartheid. The patron saint of the assassin, she led John Wilkes Booth through the dark theater, and roared with him “Sic semper tyranis.” She enlisted Gavarillo Princip and the Black Hand to plunge Europe into generations of chaos. The evil princess sent Nathuram Godse to silence Gandhi, then laughed as bloodshed racked partition. She sat in the book depository and steadied Oswald’s aim. She gave James Earl Ray cover in the shrubs, then stoked the flaming ghettos after her handiwork was carried out. It was her dark yeshiva in which Yigal Amir was a student, and with him she crushed Oslo. The Princess of Fear and her dark kingdom are found in the hearts of all men.

But the Queen of the Muse watches out for those who will hear her warnings. Far away, in a distant land, the Queen of the Muse sits below rounded marble domes. On the cool marble floor, she sits in peace. With henna decorating the palms of her hands, and wrapping up her arms. Beeswax reddens her lips, and black kohl lines her eye, as she stares out into the distance. A vermilion tikka adorns her forehead, while jewels and gems adorn her face and body. Sparkling diamond earrings, a golden nose ring and anklets of silver to announce her presence. She is wrapped in the softest purple silk. On the walls, the simple words of warning are inscribed in black calligraphy:

Guard your thoughts, they become your words

Guard your words, they become your actions

Guard your actions, they become your habits

Guard your habits, they become your character

Guard your character, it becomes your destiny

The Muse's Indian Kingdom

"O' Muse! Sing in me, and through me tell the story"
-Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

After only three days, I have found our dear Muse's Indian Kingdom. Her kingdom sits on the other side of the pilgrim's river. Fields of spices and fragrant gardens of tea greet the wary traveler, as Bengal tigers sleep under the cool shade of the banyan trees. Approaching her palace, the white marble meringue towers sit above the hills, like a palace of heaven. The ribbed golden dome of her palace reflects the radiance that lights the skies, and the edifice reflects in diametric perfection in the moat that surrounds it. Yellow-turbaned guards with long white beards and long silver swords with jewel-encrusted handles stand watch at her gates, but over masala chai agree to let me enter her palace.

The palace is a maze of columns made of marble. Carved statues of Vishnu, Ganesh and Shiva gaze down from the ceiling and beckon me forward, as peacocks of purple plumage wander around the halls. White lotus flowers and purple bougainvillea wrap around the open windows, and shied me from the intense Indian sun.

Upon entry, the Muse is found, wrapped in a purple sari- embroidered in gold-trimmed lotuses. In the land of Gandhi, the Muse takes no throne, but rather sits cross-legged on the floor. Her long, black locks sit braided over her right shoulder, as she stares out with her kashmiri blue eyes. Above her eyes sits an emerald encrusted in diamonds, as a delicate ruby lined with gold adorns her delicate nose. She just patiently sits over her delicate canvases of Sanskirt. Written in Kali's red ink, with Ganesh's ivory tusk, she reads out the words the will imbue those willing to listen with ideas of wisdom that are far richer than the jewels that encrust her radiant tiara.

Whispered in the ears of the lower castes, she brings solace to those sleeping on the streets. She convinced Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu to give up her nun habits for a blue and white sari, and Mother Theresa took on the burdens of caring for Calcutta's destitute. She walked with Gandhi to the sea, as he carried out his salt march against the British. She cheered for India's hard-fought independence, but cried as the cleavages, wars and dispossession that followed; she still bears those scars today. More recently, our dear Muse gave Salman Rushdie the courage to write her words, and strength to bear the consequences.

The Muse's Indian kingdom is one of a vast array of colors, and an overload of the senses. As the long, hot Indian day fades into the purple night, the Muse merely sits with an enigmatic smile on her face as I fight to understand her blessed kingdom.

Middle Kingdom of the Muse

Our fair muse hold court in the Middle Kingdom. It is perilous to enter, as it is guarded by dragons with long serpentine tails. The walls are manned by archers with quivers of quills. Cross the giant walls, and slip past her guards and you can enter.

Sail over rivers of red ink and past lakes of mercury, and you can reach her jade palace. It rests on the back of an elephant, with spires that reach the sky. From each level, there are silk flags that proclaim her mercurial glory.

Cross the gardens of pearls, and the lapis bridges that walk you over the ponds of quicksilver and her throne may be found. The throne room is made of gold filigree, and the Empress Muse sits upon a mother-of-pearl and mahogany throne.

She is clothed in purple silk, holding a jewel-encrusted scepter of a brush. She spends her days writing calligraphic ideas to implant in the minds of those who will listen. She whispered in the ears of the Boxers, to convince them of their invincibility against Western weapons. She convinced Dr. Sun Yat Sen of his higher purpose than medicine. The Muse walked with Mao on his Long March across the hinterlands of the Middle Kingdom. She has lately switched her allegiance, as she stood behind the students of Tiananmen, telling them not to fear the tanks rolling in.

Our sweet Muse whispers her dulcet words to me, and tells me that it is time to leave the red dragon nation. I leave with more questions than answers, but with something more precious than Marco Polo's spices and jewels. Her gift is ideas.

African Kingdom of the Muse

The plague of ideas is heavy in Africa. I never thought the Muse's kingdom would be found here. Now I realize that the Muse's scepter was made here from porcupine quills. She hunts with a QuaQua bow and arrows, fashioned from pens. Her black ink cover the inhabitants of this continent.

They don't know it, but I can see it. Their blood is my ink. Their faces are lined with both joy and pain. I see her work on the cave walls. She came to them in their dreams and visions.

The Queen of the Muse kept Mandela alive in his solitary cell. She filled his lonely walls with words of hope. She did the same for Gandhi, feeding him with diction as he carried on his hunger strikes. She whispered her sweet dulcet words in Dr. King's ear.

Her evil twin sister, the Princess of Fear is rife here. She filled the minds and hearts of Mandela's captors. She is strong here. Yet our beloved sovereign, the Queen of the Muse is also the empress of ideas and she reins high over the lucid rivers of ink; her kingdom is stronger.

Kingdom of the Muse

When I was younger, the Muse would appear in fleeting briefness. She would whisper her sweet syllables in my ear, but would disappear as I tried to wrestle her onto my page. Now the more I write, the Muse appears to me in increased regularity. The more I sacrifice my ink into her altar of diction, the more she comes to me in her crowned verbal glory. This patron saint of the scribe pirouettes on my paper; she sends her divine wisdom coursing through my pen.

She offers me cathartic relief from the thoughts that burden my shoulders. She is therapy for the plague of ideas. Yet she is still so difficult to hold onto. Her angelic splendor is mercurial. The more I try to hold onto her tightly, the more she slips free from my clutches. Her wings fly her off my page and into infinite oblivion.

I stand at the gates, peering into the Muse’s kingdom. Yet her gates remain locked to me. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky stand guard silently as two sentinels at her gates. On the other side, I see Hemingway fishing in a pond of letters. Joyce and his companion Kafka stumble around drunk on lexis and absinthe. Sitting in solitude outside the Muse’s gates, Garcia Marquez sips his glass of choleric ink and waits patiently for his turn to enter.

I offer myself as a humble follower of her divine craft, so that this priestess may open the gates to her printed temple. From high above, the Muse sits as an empress on her high throne of ballpoints, covered in the splendor of robes fashioned by purple quills. With an enigmatic smile on her face, she counsels me to be patient. Her divine secrets are revealed only to those who are ready to bear the weight of inscription. Until that day, this wordsmith is left wrapped in the solitude of blank whites pages.