Waiting In Vain

Steam rolls off the first cup

of black coffee as women’s

voices rise from next door,

then in a moment, evaporate.

I’m waiting for my muse,

she’s tardy, AWOL for days,

on another bender perhaps,

or at best lazing in a field

of desiccated summer grasses

and 50 year-old palm trees

stunted and sparse, lousy

minimalist art at canyon bottom;

she’s dozing now, dazed in the heat

beyond reach of this pen, this vacated

page, this man’s bland mind, pondering

meandering onwards 
as the chipped cup cools,

begins its further dwindling.