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The Pre-Dawn Muse Blues

Published by Ken Gosse at September 19, 2026
Categories
  • Poetry
Tags
  • Ken Gosse
  • poetry
  • pre-dawn
Image of the sky over a field, just as dawn begins to ripen. TEXT: The Pre-Dawn Muse Blues - Ken Gosse - Poetry

Image by Mohammad Dadkhah from Unsplash

(in 100 words)

The pre-dawn hunt and peck is on,
although conclusions seem forgone.
Every muse tries to contuse
my fingertips and to confuse
the digits stretching from my palms,
provoking doubts, arousing qualms,
telling me that I’m not dext’rous,
taunting me with nagging vextrous
and abusive so that I’m
inclined to mime instead of rhyme.

They change my fonts against my wonts,
replace tradition with avants,
ensnare my feet with awkward meter
(formal or more indiscreeter),
then use Gordo knots to wind
entangled threads within my mind,
curtailing all consistency,
eviscerating energy —
hoping evermore that I’ll
resume my slumbers for a while. 


Looking for more? Try these:

  • Prompts in Images: Music Story Prompts – Writing Prompts
  • The Other Day – Peaceful Poetry
  • At Daybreak – Early Morning Poetry Reading
  • Taking a Break – Cleansing for the Soul – Positivity Corner

***

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Ken Gosse
+ postsBio

Ken Gosse usually writes short, rhymed verse using whimsy and humor in traditional meters. First published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, since then in The Offbeat, Pure Slush, Parody, Home Planet News Online, Sparks of Calliope and others. Raised in the Chicago, Illinois, suburbs, now retired, he and his wife have lived in Mesa, AZ, over twenty years.

Find more from Ken on Facebook.

    This author does not have any more posts.

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