The Artist's Muse Poem by Mark Heathcote

Cut off from normal-pursuit and everyday pleasures
there are comforts lost in hedonism and debauchery
once the artist's muse kicks off her ballet shoes
and no longer poses by his vase of wilting Shasta daisies.
Like some ice-cream-vendor licking the back of a greasy spoon.
Smoking French-filtered cigarettes,
after eating, another satisfying, fulfilling breakfast.
She gazes with leaden puppy dog eyes filled-
with melancholia into the litmus blue smoke and ponders.
Has he caught her likeness, has she been immortalised on canvas?
When will he ever finish this work of immortal art?
And why must he paint during the hours of sunrise-
facing his easel, suggesting his work is never entirely done?

Oh, it's then he chuckles and laughs and whimsically remarks.
'You've got to break a few eggs to make an omelette.'
It's now her cheekbones blush a daisy soft crimson red,
It's briefly now she's questioning his jarred-
turpentine paintbrushes, tight-lipped and pertinent.
Is this why he handpicks his muses so unblushingly perfect
so young and all too innocently vulnerable?
And how many more overcooked eggs, breakfasts-
at sunrise are still to come before he paints his nude by moonlight.
Will it be when all those other Shasta daisies are dead-
the colour of murky black paint water in a crystal vase.
His muse gazes up much older now as he captures her eyes
forever in charcoal and leads before sojourning to his bed.