1 Comment
User's avatar
⭠ Return to thread
Stephen S. Power's avatar

I love this, but I'd take a different tack:

I

Among twenty unfinished manuscripts,

The only moving thing

Was the TV remote.

II

I was of three minds,

Like a auction

In which there are multiple bidders.

III

The reject letter whirled in the autumn winds

like a child screaming at a pantomime.

IV

A man and a woman

Are one.

A man and a woman and an agent

Are one.

V

I do not know which to prefer,

The beauty of notes

Or the beauty of praise,

An author weeping

Or just after.

VI

Icicles filled the long window

With barbaric glass

because I threw my broken laptop

through it.

VII

O thin men of Haddam,

Where is my royalty check?

VIII

I know noble accents

And lucid, inescapable rhythms;

But the copyeditor knows

The Chicago Manual of Style.

IX

When the blackbird flew out of sight,

It crapped on the edge

Of one of many useless social media circles.

X

At the sight of assistants

Flying in a green light,

Even the bawds of euphony

Would cry out, Pay them!

to end the strike.

XI

The publisher rode over Connecticut

In a glass coach.

Once, a fear pierced him,

that this ride

he couldn't expense.

XII

The river is moving.

The blackbird must be flying.

Still no response to my query.

XIII

It was evening all afternoon.

It was snowing

And it was going to snow.

The writer sat

In the cedar-limbs,

waiting for inspiration.

Expand full comment