How Easy to Forget

I thought I was posting something yesterday that I had not put up before. I was wrong. When one goes months between blog posts, it's easy to forget what has already been posted.
I had another poem that appeared in the same issue of Spectra back in 2002 and here it is:

Elusive Muses


They come in ghostly shapes,
These storied people, dancing seductively at the edges of dreams—
Mysterious Lorelei who giggle and whisper amongst themselves tales
Of audacious abandon, of kings and paupers, lovers and fiends,
too soft to hear.


Their phantom auras, diaphanous,
yet full of throaty promise, float just beyond the edge of knowing, yielding little.
My trailing hand wafts through and pulls back a failing scent
Of refuted memory, miserable triumphs and carousing criminality
too secret to tell.


Their mocking laughter echoes
between the clumsy scratches of pen to paper. Locks of braided
bells clink and jingle as they shake their heads, shimmering with scorn
as truth is twisted by self-deception, denial or lies
too wanton to believe.

Imperious, they wait. Disgusted,
They leave. Drifting away, fluttering words as they go, scattering
seedlings of imagination, which wither and expire
even as they are scooped up and nurtured by desire
too foolish to check.