Wordy,
he expressed to me in eyes that flickered grey-white with the low expectation of a tired dog.
Cliched.
So tired of reading this stuff that passes as poetry.
In your mind, his eyes tell me, you reach
a point where nothing you write is bad.
At worst it’s uninspired. All illusion.
Let me tell you a story, lad, his back-and-forth irises intone.
Meticulous lines skirt the circles of his pupils, twin hulas of woven hazel-brown grass.
Once, when I was sixteen, I broke my hand attempting to break a window with my fist.
It was my first jolt of inspiration. I knew I was destructible.
My fist shattered, blood, bone, and glass dripping down as
I sat on the pavement, the car alarm bursting with chattering, and my head weak with pain,
I had the revelation that all I had been was nothing,
because I was broken. I wasn’t perfect. I wasn’t even great.
My weak future.
He blinks, and I lose his story for a brief flash,
and when it’s over, his eyes, grey-white and hazel-brown and
disguised by horn-rims,
sink
in
fatigue
one gets when reading James Joyce.
So I don’t expect any great revelation from him,
tired from explaining with his eyes why my writing doesn’t pass muster.
“Nice,” he says with his mouth, but I don’t believe him.
He’s just being lazy.
It’s all in his eyes.
Please stop writing, they say.
Save the world one more bit of tripe and literary trollop.
Surprised, I ask out loud, “What’s literary trollop?”
“Oh. Stories of whiskey bar denizens and people in alleys. Smack addicts. Homosexuals. Chickens popping up on electric grids, like weasels. I mean, groundhogs. Down and out. You know?”
“Like the stuff I write, right?” I say.
“You want it straight, don’t you?” he says.
“I wouldn’t be standing here.”
“Writers are pretentious. It’s just their way. You’ve got it, kid. Elevated sense of self. Think everything you write is gold. Don’t you?”
“No.”
“Bullshit. That’s why you never rewrite any of your lines.”
“How did you know?”
“Because they read like a self-important kid wrote them on his desk.”
I’m quiet. I wasn’t expecting that.
I stand there while his eyes grow colder, more intense.
No fire in them, just cold winter.
Then he sighs, and I know my shoulders slump noticeably.
His eyes tell me to go away. He just wants to not think for a while.
“Look. I’m sorry I said it that way. Here.”
He stands, pulls a slender book from the shelf behind him.
“You can borrow this.”
The Mediocre Writer
I grab the book, thanking him, telling him I’ll return it.
I just want to get out of there. I don’t want to hear him say
“Well, I’ve gotta get going here.”
It was enough seeing it in his eyes.
Still, I know he wasn’t sorry.
And I know he lent me the book to make me leave.
Doesn’t matter what he thinks. I know it’s good. I know it’s good.