Contemporary Musings
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Contemporary Musings
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About Me
T. Emmett Mueller earned a BA in Philosophy with a minor in Classical Languages and an M.Ed degree from Ohio University. An educator for 26 years in Michigan, he retired to Florida and has undertaken the serious study and writing of contemporary poetry. His work has been featured in The Detroit News, hardcopy magazines -- such as Maelstrom, Poetry Depth Quarterly, Stark Raving Sanity, Mind Fire, Introspection, Outsider, Poet's Fantasy, Emotions, Somniloquy, Over the Back Fence, and a British magazine, The Argotist. He is also widely published in selective electronic magazines such as This Hard Wind, Mindfire, Writer's Quill, A Writer's Choice, Jocundity, Rose & Thorn,Outsider, Wild Word, and Poet's Fantasy. He currently holds the position of Poetry Contest Editor for Mindfire Renewed poetry magazine, is Associate Editor for PoetWorks Press and TinyWords.com. He serves as President of the Brandon Poets and Artists Guild.
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Sample Poems:
CLIMBING GIRL
The dead stay dead and silent
for the most part.
Yet, British lore is rife
with tales of ghosts...
Lord Shaftesbury's manor home
had a tall fieldstone chimney.
A nameless waif,
chosen for her diminutive stature
and slender frame,
black as a bat,
choking and coughing up sooty spittle,
cuts and grazes on her elbows and knees,
hesitated momentarily
as she braced her back against
sharp interior stones
and jagged mortar seals.
A cruel sweepmaster chided her
then raised a blazing hand-torch
to her ankles.
He threatened, "By Victoria's crown,
by the three pence-a-day
I so generously pay,
I'll light a fire under you, bratling
climbing girl. Stiffened fingers
are boom-straws enough
for such as you...methinks."
Chimney ashes
offered her no epitaph
to tell of sleepless nights,
what frightful thoughts,
what pain and what release
in quick collapse.
Dust of climbing girl,
sweepmaster,
Shaftesbury,
and The Queen,
blows identically
across Hempshire fields.
Hearth tiles are haunted
by an unquiet spirit;
a presence reminding us
that most lives
are a short second-best,
a spiteful compromise
between the lofty ideal
and the down-to-earth
possible.
( Inspired by The Dead, a poem by Susan Mitchell )
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PURSE-PROUD
Maybe spirit
was the whimper of a dying mother,
or breath of ancestors
that entered through pores of naked flesh
as great aunt Meemeenah
offered another cliffside infant
to sun and wind.
Maybe it entered
when wild-eyed father,
insane from last drops
of the man's bottle,
raised his long blade
to an evening sky,
chopped an arm from brother saguaro,
sliced it down the middle and spoke
of tender veins sustaining growth
of center fiber.
Maybe it entered with semen
of four cowboys
who roped me at thirteen...
rode me into stinging dust,
quashed raging screams
back down a raven's throat.
Today, I walk the open market square
half-proud of better clothes --
twirling a turquoise-jeweled braid
before sisters selling dream catchers.
They pretend ignorance of correct change.
Culture,
in these modern times,
is Pocahontas beauty,
pleasure of thighs and still-firm breasts
sold for larger bills.
Squat there on your sand.
Don feathers for the tourists.
Drum and dance for copper-silver rain.
Give me a windowless room
with scented candles...
blankets enough to cover.
Give me a stream to wash off
man-stench every sundown,
a crock full of dry pinto beans
to hide my hands,
and a mirror where I can stand
to ask a few more days of spirit.
--------------------------------------------------
BARBARIAN BUTTERFLIES
You sign for a special delivery.
The sender's name is unfamiliar
and you wonder
if the foam-weight box
could be a mistake.
Curiosity triumphs
and, before the brown truck has left your street,
your box-cutter is slicing tape.
Flaps unfold
and, like cave bats
dusk-alarmed to a frenzy,
a horde of barbarian butterflies (Al Qaeda Terroridae)
swarms at your face.
They have tungsten-edged wings... scalpels
honed in battle flights
through sandstorms...
counterfeit eyes at their hips.
The attack leaves razor-cut streaks
on your nose and ears;
a momentary sting
scars all your senses.
A half-dreaded holocaust ensues.
Free-ranging shadows flutter and dart.
Little sighs squeak from flower bouquets
and Hummel statuary
as heads roll.
Grandfather clock's pendulum
clangs to the floor.
Arms flail
and hands instinctively swat and clap
to no avail.
The leader carves holes
in screened windows and doors.
There are tornadoes of escape.
In assault's aftermath,
you inhale serenity
and methodically run fingers
along Venetian blind slats
checking for eggs.
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ANOTHER TRANSIENT CREATION
Master of international and ethnic cuisine,
Minneapolis Bob has grown accustomed
to the transitory nature of his masterpieces;
hours of painstaking preparations --
smoked Scottish salmon, Caspian caviar,
and braised quail fanned into rainbows of epicurean ecstasy
all hastily devoured
by eager and insensitive diners.
Postmodern culinary artistry demands
that a certified sous chef have a French name
and the ability to sculpt ice,
so Bob has his name
legally changed to Pierre, vacuums wood dust
from his chain saw, and begins practice
on a berg-sized block of ice.
Michaelangelo's David is his goal,
but there are unexpected stress points
and brittle pinches. Arms and other appendages fall...
a miniature Venus De Milo results.
Even she,
at room temperature,
is as impermanent
as the first October snowflake.
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