Monologue of the muse at midday

It is not easy to be a muse at midday. The ones at dawn or dusk are fortunate: all they have to do is point (oh light oh colours oh songbirds). And midnight’s a piece of cake, what with all the fairytale associations, the chiming of the clock ominous all of a sudden, spectres of magic...oooo! Even an amateur can conjure some artistic concoction. But here I am, at 12:00 – half of my target population are drowsily thinking of lunch; the rest are barely waking up (particularly those from the latin regions, or more likely, those inspired by the lucky muses of the small hours). What do I have to work with? The sun’s smack in the middle of the sky. No subtlety, no nuance, no innuendo: only noon. And I have to make do with the mundane: moist coffeepowder in the filter of the coffee machine; miscellaneous city noises; the legs of an anonymous waitress; e-mail (give me strength!); traffic...although I have to say, some of my best work involved transport-based chance encounters {sigh}. Yes, it is a challenge, and in that sense can be quite rewarding...in the end. And sure, no-one can write me off as just-a-pretty-face: it takes a certain level of ingenuity and grace to do what I do. It’s just {slightly imploring, somewhat pissed-off} sometimes I wish it was a little less hard.