Temper Your Muse Poem by Charlotte Ballard

Temper your muse
If you care to produce
Any real line of prose
Or heavenly verse -

Verses packed, side by side,
In long glass tubes
Filled with formaldehyde
And cotton gauze packed tight.

It sets it, you know,
That yellow-brown gunk
From promises sweet to
Stiff man cures.

My promises are nothing
But ashes and smoke-
Even the alcohol turns
Brown, drunk down twice.

Lay down my friend,
To finger my robe.
I’ll open a jar and
Let you inhale them first.