Queueing the muses

​I haven’t written a poem in more than a year. I have written short stories, blogs, bits and pieces of a novel, letters and journal entries. I have painted and drawn and inked and designed. But not a single poem. Maybe it is time.
 
How does one cope with multi-creativity? How do you prioritise varied artistic endeavours? How do you manage a multitude of muses?
 
With a full-time job spilling into overtime and a household to run, it is not easy to accumulate enough creative energy to serve even one muse, but when you have a whole bunch of inspiring (and aspiring) goddesses to keep happy, things can get really tricky.
 
Sometimes I envy the artists who have narrowed their focus to a specific field. They can pour all their creativity into that one area – the romantic historical novelists, the haiku poets, the silk screen printers, the scrap metal sculptors, the writers of young adult fiction or medical whodunits. They’ve chosen their muse and found their niche.
 
Me? I keep a harem of muses.
 
They live in the twilight zone of floating time, the moments of sudden clarity between clouds. They leave me little notes of inspiration and encouragement and sometimes impatient hints. I marvel that none has abandoned me yet. I snatch inadequate snippets of time to give them my divided attention.
 
I cannot keep them all happy, but I cannot thin them out. I cannot let any of them go. They are like outfits in a wardrobe that I occasionally wear when I shed my work clothes and my steel-tipped boots. But I do wear them, even if it takes a while to shake out the dust and the creases and the smell of mildew.
 
Oh my trusted, my patient muses
veiled in you, slipped in the silken folds of you
I dance
my feet slippered in embroidered sky
I step into the moments of bliss
your shimmering perfume on my skin
a kiss I won’t remember
a word I won’t repeat.
 
I haven’t written a poem in more than a year. Maybe it is time.