(in which Erato disses Calliope while Euterpe and Thalia cry with Melpomene)

Diodorus states that Osiris first recruited the nine Muses, along with the satyrs,
while passing through Aethiopia, before embarking on a tour of all Asia and Europe,
teaching the arts of cultivation wherever he went.

Wikipedia: Muses

Your silly muse always makes you lose—
The muse I love helps me rise above.
Such maudlin prattle passing for art
Offends my muse’s fiery heart.

You dither around with weak sentimental observations, verbose deviations, and matriarchal abominations. You insult the Muse to her face but you are so lacking in lyrical discernment you don’t even realize you have offended her. You think life is a risk-free endeavor. You make me CRINGE, you cheapeners of poetry. Though you think you birth verse into being, you cannot conceive a message worthy of delivery in urgency, you fake midwives.  You coo and you sigh and you scribble some ass-kissing commentary but you do not have POETRY in your SOUL! Poetry takes no prisoners and poetry KNOWS where you LIVE!   Poetry is not playing.

This mythical being is quite professional;
Musing on weakness, she sharpens her sword,
While she composes your death processional:
Dull and dispassionate. Such is your word.

FINAL PROMPT 2026:

write your own poem that discusses a real or mythical being or profession
with a musing yet dispassionate tone.

Lift up your feet and put them on the ground
The trees were taller (when you were young)

Roxy Music

You know it is true: everything,

sound, smell and color were more intense.

The music of every sunset meant

life imagined in future tense.

Furtive fun with the neighbor girl:

getting naked in her closet.

Animal life held fascination—

experience was not yet composite.

Childhood was made easy for us;

grown-ups could do everything.

Friends and cousins joined the chorus

Singing winter into spring—

until it turned to dry routine:

money, taxes, the hours restless . . .

times arrived where dreams were absent;

sleep eludes, and food is tasteless.

Over-analysis tends to destroy

what childhood was able to enjoy.

PROMPT # 29:

compare your everyday present life with your past self,
use specific details to conjure your past and present in the reader’s mind.