Women inspire me. When I meet a new woman who infatuates me, I often think, I wonder how many poems she’ll inspire before she’s gone? You see, I am a pessimist. Or maybe not. I wrote a decent poem about a woman it took me months to actually ask out (she told me “no” twice, but I still like the poem). I knocked out a short story all because I couldn’t get an image of a woman dancing with a child out of my head. My first long term relationship started with a poem. I met the woman, then that night, went home and wrote about all the carnal knowledge I wanted to take from her. It was six months before I could show it to her, and then only because my roommate had told her about it, and I’d written her many many tamer poems by then.

I do not believe in Love at first sight, but I do believe I know if it’s possible at a glance. I write beauties off in a heartbeat that other men would kill for, just as I am sometimes convinced my soulmate is in the other lane coming at me at 55. With a 130 mph difference, I can’t even get her name. But I sometimes get a poem. Only thing is, it has to be a woman I’ve met. Characters in books, actors on the screen, and models in photographs, all unworthy subjects. It takes the girl next door, the coffee shop waitress, the random walk of a woman that knows how to, my special little barmaid, or even a lilting voice from across the room. But some part of me has to love some part of her. And this is easy. It happens to me all the time.

These are singular aspects and often all you need for inspiration. I can be infatuated with the way she moves (until she speaks), can love her eyes (until she smiles), love her, umm, err, umm, yeah (until she laughs). Usually, this is enough. I can work with this.

Sure, I can do without (but why would I want to?). And I could perhaps even write something based on imagination alone, but to me this misses the point. I want to capture a time and place and feeling from my life. And I don’t really care if others care. Really I don’t. I put a lot of it out there, hoping others will connect, hoping people will read and be moved (even if it’s in disgust and hatred), but I do hope some few like it, but if no one does, I won’t lose sleep. I’ll just keep looking for my next muse.

I wrote this little essay at a time when I really wasn’t dating at all. I sometimes asked, was asked once, and did try a few times, but I was either being told “no,” wasn’t really interested, or I just wasn’t making a connection. Or the other way around.

I’m sure I meant it at the time, but the reality is that it’s not just women who inspire my poetry. It’s my biography, my life. Most my poems start out from some observation made or comment overheard. And I do write about more than women. I tend to write my obsessions, infatuations, fears and faults. I lie a lot in my poems, yet they always seem honest to me. If I use myself as a springboard I often land in places very foreign.

When I wrote this you couldn’t have convinced me that I would be dating a woman in less than 4 months. Ok, maybe you could have, but you couldn’t have convinced me that we’d be steadily dating. Ok, maybe you could. But for sure there was no way to convince me it would last. Well, we’ve been dating for 18 months come this Monday…or so I am told (I really suck at dates).

She’s inspired her fair share of poems. Maybe less, since I am not the energetic love struck teenager I once was, but I’ve still written a few about her, and considering I don’t write many poems anymore, percentage-wise she’s way ahead. And I have time to catch up, time to surpass the passing infatuation, and am sure in years to come, will really look back to the above post with a greater sense of amusement than I do now.

This is why I like journalling. It captures a time and place in my life. Otherwise, I’d never believe I ever felt the way above.

Oh, by the way, I found my muse.