Where My Muse Takes Me

I was eight years old when I was first introduced to poetry. My form mistress during that second year at primary school was an imposing – and to an eight year old boy, terrifying – figure. Despite being a strict disciplinarian, she never did drum the times tables into my mathematically challenged head. Yet she successfully introduced me to the delights of John Masefield’s “Sea Fever” and T. S. Eliot’s “McCavity, the Mystery Cat”.

I recall being horrified when she insisted that I read a poem (long since forgotten) at morning assembly. I managed to get through the ordeal, but didn’t see what it was that she saw then; a love for verse and the English language and an ability to hear the natural cadence in the sounds of words. Frankly, I spent that year far too terrified to realise that I enjoyed English literature and poetry in particular.

Forty years later, I still read and write poems and the love of language remains undiminished by the passage of time. “Where My Muse Takes Me” is an antholgy of these poems; the random thoughts of a wandering mind. I hope that you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed rambling through the strange, dreamlike places in my head from whence they came.

Once again, I’ve chosen Lulu.com to publish my work. The 22 poems are avaliable as a print book or downloadable as an ebook. Some of these verses have already been published here. And, as a sampler, here is the title poem:

Where My Muse Takes Me

Nothing could make my life more complete;
Than watching warm sunlight reflect on a tropical lagoon.
As I walk alone with the white sand burning beneath my feet.
Palm trees swaying in the warm afternoon.
I must away to that far sea;
For that is where my muse takes me.

Could there ever be a more breathtaking ride
Than to soar in an old string kite high above the Earth?
Where only the sparrowhawk and eagle dare to glide.
Freedom like this is far beyond money’s worth.
Oh! To join that eagle so free;
For that is where my muse takes me.

I long to be far away from the busy, bustling city lights
To the wild lonely places, still and quiet and desolate;
Solitude will my companion be, among the mountain heights;
To be alone in the wilderness should be my fate.
Because there is where I want to be;
For that is where my muse takes me.