The Muse

Originally Appeared Here

Too many hours watching incoming traffic will bore me
Until I'm offered help for an autobiographical story
See, I know it comes as quite a shock
But sometimes I still get writer's block
And I'm left like Homer beseeching the muse(1)
Or apes before tools(2), she can teach me to use
The pen I hold so I can write my magnum opus
Another Nightingale Woman like Tarbolde on canopus(3)
I think we make a good team like Geordi and Bochra(4)
With me writing the words and her aligning the chakras
I put it to paper and soon I'm writing my novel
Words flowing out, I'm over the moon like Jim Lovell(5)
Sitting in a tin can, far above my old space station(6)
From my window it looked like (7)I could see all of creation
But when she's gone I'm powerless, a temple-less Apollo(8)
And after touching the sky, you know the world can seem so hollow(9)
Recreating a holodeck Camelot, you know it's only a model(10)
Or Moriarty thinking he's an astronaut in a ship in a bottle(11)
I got stories stuck inside, a trill with a worm in me
My muse materializes, we bust out of the infirmary
So I can work on it in secret, like a Cardassian fleet in Orias(12)
But who will mourn for Adonais(13), when I wasn't warned about Onaya's
Talent for drawing power from my brain like a Devidian
Consuming a life force with a cane of form ophidian(14)
Tapping neural nodes in a plexus, I know that it's reckless,
but when I'm on a roll I feel wrapped up in joy like the Nexus(15)
Or Lwaxana longing for the contentment of the womb
But if I can't change course soon, I'll be sent to the tomb
Burn out too quickly, I'll shine and then go dark
Can't last like a light made by a man in Menlo Park(16)
I'm caught in her web, and she's pushing me too hard
I'll be a roman candle exploding like a spider 'cross the stars
And the people call me Sal Paradise 'cause I'm on top of the beats(17)
Turns out she's the same parasite that was droppin' John Keats(18)
Isn't worth my life, the price ain't right, glad my dad's rescue came along
'Cause the candle that burns twice as bright only lasts for half as long(19)
About to fly myself apart, Sulu overdriving the Excelsior(20)
Maybe I'll go back the start and keep on writing when I'm healthier

1. Different English translations of The Odyssey begin with, "Tell me, o Muse, ..." or some variation thereof.
2. Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey begins with the sequence "The Dawn of Man", where apes first discover the use of tools after touching the monolith.
3. Tarbolde was an author from Canopus planet, whom Onaya claims to have known. His poem "Nightingale Woman" was referenced in "Where No Man Has Gone Before".
4. In TNG's "The Enemy", the Romulan centurion Bochra is stranded on Galorndon Core with Geordi LaForge. Bochra is unable to walk, and Geordi is unable to see, so they must work together to survive.
5. James Lovell was the commander of the Apollo 13 mission, which orbited the moon but did not land. The command module was named Odyssey.
6. From the lyrics to David Bowie's "Space Oddity", "Here am I sitting in a tin can far above the world"
7. The first sentence of the draft of Anslem shown in the episode begins, "From my window, it looked like the ..."
8. The Greek god Apollo was set as the leader of the muses. He appeared in the TOS epsiode "Who Mourns For Adonais?" where his god-like powers were explained as arising from an energy field within his temple. When the temple was destroyed, his powers began to fade.
9. From the TOS episode, "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky"
10. Dax and Kira are setting off to enjoy a holosuite program set in Camelot. The line, "It's only a model" comes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
11. From TNG's "Ship in a Bottle", Professor Moriarty, aware of his existence as a holographic fantasy character, demands to be set free. He believes it has been granted, when he is in fact left exploring a larger holodeck program.
12. Star-system in Cardassian space where the Obsidian Order was building a fleet in preparation for an invasion of the Gamma quadrant in a joint operation with the Tal Shiar.
13. From the aforementioned TOS episode, it comes from Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Adonaïs", written as an elegy for John Keats, mentioned later in the verse.
14. In TNG's "Time's Arrow", the Devidians were a race that fed off of humans' neural energy. They used a snake-like creature to open vortices in the spacetime continuum.
15. From Guinan's description of the Nexus in Star Trek: Generations.
16. Thomas Edison, credited as the inventor of the light bulb, had his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. 
17. The preceding line comes from Sal Paradise in Jack Kerouac's On the Road, a defining work of the beat generation.
18. Onaya lists John Keats among the artists she help stimulate at the cost of shortening his life.
19. Quote from Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching, later used in Blade Runner by Eldon Tyrell.
20. From Star Trek VI, when Sulu is racing to help Kirk and the Enterprise at Khitomer.