daughters of zeus and mnemosyne ("memory"), they were born at pieria at the foot of mount olympus. their name (akin to the latin 'mens' and english 'mind') denotes 'memory' or 'a reminder', since the poets and minstrels of earler times, having no books to read from, relied on their memories. the nine muses are:
I see the constant morph of history
If Darwin were a sociologist
I guess it takes a species
It was nice for heaviness to leave me for awhile,
Though half my burden was forgotten,
The most unpleasant part of me,
I re-attatched the puppetstrings
At least it's better than regret for sloth and wasting away
the muses are the nine greek godesses which preside over all arts and sciences. they have become symbolic metaphors for all forms of inspiration (mainly artistic)
Calliope: she of the beautiful voice, patron goddess of epic poetry
Clio: which means 'celebrate', patron goddess of history.
Erato: the lovely one, patron goddess of lyric poetry 
Melpomone: she who sings and dances, patron goddess of tragedy.
Euterpe: of the 'happy delight' and the flute
Polyhymnia: she of many songs, the mime
Terpsichore: enjoyment in dancing, light verse & dance
Thalia: she of good cheer, patron goddess of comedy
Urania: the heavenly one, patron goddess of astronomy
Here are some of the fruits of my own Muse.
A small but growing collection of poetry and free verse.
I by no means consider myself a poet laureate,
but maybe you'll find something that strikes a chord.
[cradled by the grave]
mute subsurface landscape
blue shot through
with laser sunbeams
silent mortuary vacuum
sliding sad,
without resistance, sailing,
gliding ever downward
swaying
cradled by the grave
life and breath
leave graceful
kissed away
with velvet softness
she's a statue silken ghostly
waltzing lifeless pale
and fragile
to the bottom of the sea
~Arcaine
---------------
[nothingstate]
reality is gossamar
a hologram illusion
atoms bonded miniscule
in orderly confusion
neural electricity
network synapse senses
neverending feedback loop
constructiong aether fences
in lid-dark view
they dissipate
blooming,
bleeding through
the barrier between
the solid mind-mirage
and you
kundalini energy
hums tingling
through the flesh
metaphysic molocules
spin ego into mesh
being into blackness
pitches, plunging
through implosion
chemical phantasm flashes
trigger an explosion
physical awareness
deconstructing into nihil
featherlight
and floating free
untethered from the will
~Arcaine
---------------
[eros mortis]
cupid took an arrow,
slammed it through his heart
an irony of suicide;
from death he'll never part
~Arcaine
---------------
[the gilded age of opium & poppies]
in the gilded age of opium
and poppies
worms spun velvet
and brocade
for ladie's gowns
spiders wove
dark tapestries
of grim seduction
and poets woke
the muses
from their slumber
shadows waltzed-- across the moors--and in the houses
ravens whispered
with their wingbeat
ghostly sigh
and the dead were
ever present
ever watching
melancholia delirium was catching
bloodstained hankerchiefs
drank tears of sickly sweetness
echoes haunted
hallowed corridors and halls
moonspun aether wraiths
were guardians of graveyards
where the beautiful and dammned
were laid to rest
~Arcaine
[Plastic Metamorphasis]
Endless evolution of societies
Never adapting naturally
To themselves
Or to their world.
Natural Selection would never fly
Specimens of ignorance abound
Our thinkers, herd-hunted prey
Cast out
At the food chain's pinnacle
to break it down-
Destroy it, implode and self-destruct
& Re-arrange Nature's velvet tapestry
Into a manufactured plastic mannequin.
-Arcaine
(Descending But Not Sinking)
concious half-outside my body and mostly in my brain.
Now the chemicles are neutralized by blood and a clear cool spring of nueral fluids.
to be a metaphysical paradox,
inbetween the concrete and the aether.
But to stay there forever,
they call this madness.
half my worries, half my longings,
half my loathings, half my sorrow, half my bitterness.
My eyes crossed and unfocused rolling inward,
matter was blurry and voices distant,
hollow there-but-not like when you're about to sleep.
the heavy worry paranoia loathing shadow,
came back today and threw her baggage on my doorstep.
The physical and the gravity took hold again, trickling through a rusty IV,
weighing me down like liquid lead,
snaking through my veins and down my spine.
Now my head is full of rubble.
and invited my shadow back home to move my limbs.
Willpower taps me on the shoulder, reminds me of the obligation I was born with.
They call it life, modern life.
And I don't have to be a robot, perhaps just a cyborg.
It isn't all burdens and ugliness and pipe dreams--maybe.
in a consumptive daze, eyes delerious and slack,
living in a skycastle,
spinning dreamwebs that only entangle and vanish.
That would drive me mad, mad, mad. I'd rather be dead.
But maybe i'd rather be dead if i had the other half of life as well, the real part.
Maybe I would never have as much....maybe I'll have more.
5/29/00
1:05 am
-Arcaine
