I have been thinking a great deal about Muses – and now considering a different perspective. We always see the Muse as portrayed by the Artist… this beautiful beyond all expression woman – but she is so often distant, she spurns his advances, she is sometimes contemptful, or is simply beyond reach. The poor artist is wounded, but love-sick, compelled to follow her cruel beauty to the ends of the earth. Oh, dear spurned sad poet! O cruel hearted woman!
I find I am wondering more about how the Muse feels about all of this attention. These “gifts” made in her image…seeing someone paint how they see her in their mind’s eye, with words, with brush strokes. Immortalising her in a way she has little, if any, control over.The cage of idealisation that allows no room for her true humanity to enter. The precariousness of a pedestal.
On one level, and at some point, the attention of a brilliant man could be flattering and welcomed. And certainly there are Muses who fall in love with their artists, who are won and wooed, flattered and bask in the glow. But I think it could also be very unwelcomed. What about the muse who has given her heart to another, or the simply disinterested muse. I am coming to believe that carrying the burden of another’s obsession could be overwhelmingly horrible, in fact. To know that you are a constant in the thoughts of another, that their life and their work revolve around who they think you are. That they are influenced by your actions, your life, even though they may not be at all in your thoughts. Even though they may hold no attraction for you at all. I find this a frightening and disturbing prospect, and would not at all be flattering. It is actually not very romantic or poetic at all… the difference between an eager lover who woos with serenades, and a stalker lurking beneath the window.
So, I am going to be considering the reluctant Muse with new eyes for a while. The tension of being attracted to the brilliance, and being repulsed by the romantic overture - the lure and the horror of the pedestal. I am going to consider her.
in the silent dark
she let your fingers adore her
trace each line of her face she felt
them tremble across her lips
tentative and furtive they lingered
and she let them, and knew
what was shaking you, did
not move her at all.
later, alone, she made tea
wrote poems about the sea, the green meadow,
you went home and drew the contours
of her face, traced them carefully into words
penned her unwilling
and stiff to the page
“o god…”
the broken voice on the phone
all those scrawling pages! pages, and pages,
desperate spiderwebs she frantically tries to brush off
and the stain of your adoration
seeping into the fabric of sticky skeins
suffocates, steals
the air from the room.
