A Poet's Dilemma
by Neil Griffin
 

Julian, the self-dubbed Poet Laureate of Silver Lake, was in great need of sustenance. He woke up in an utter panic from his bed of words (as well as old pizza boxes, for he slept on the couch of his muse, his inspiration, his Amanda, who had kicked him out of her bed when he was delinquent on rent for the eighth month in a row). Amanda, it seems, was out of town, leaving Julian to fend for himself in this cold, bleak world that he wrote so beautifully about in his acclaimed poetry.

Sample:

O World of Grey

Nights of Lust

Beckon from

Beyond the Vein

The Needle Lurks

'Ah, what poetic brilliance,' thought Julian as the pen dropped from his hand. 'Methinks I can trade this piece of wizened, desiccated tree (or paper, ah what rich language!) for food, for without gasoline in my motor the mind from which poetry spews forth shall be an untapped geyser.' He then realized the triteness of his metaphor and revised his thought process until the metaphor shone as bright as a lighthouse penetrating a cold, dark needle-ridden night.

Julian traipsed into Trader Joe's on Hyperion. The cashier, a callused forty year old anachronism of a man, a homesick fishmonger out of Dickens, leered wearily at our Poet Laureate. Julian walked up with the confidence that poets of his stature have in spades (Julian quickly revised the last cliché in previous sentence to: 'that poets of his stature have in diamonds,' and then patted himself on the back: the siberia of the frail human body/condition).

"Why are you patting your back and crying?"

"Please, lend me your ears like Antony asked all those folios ago as I astound you with this saurian parchment, which is the true currency of the world: Words, Ideas, and Love with which I write to provide you a glimpse of human nature funneling through your very being. A trade as old as Babylon itself: this poem for seven slim jims."

"Security!"

And with that, the Romans (or security) came running forth with the passion of the Christ. 'Hmm,' squeaked Julian, 'Perhaps an appropriate allusion: Was not Jesus misunderstood? Was not Jesus persecuted? Was not Jesus penniless and heartbroken? Just as his spirit lives on through the lies of the scripture, so shall I live, eternally, through the truth of my words in air!'

Security tore up his poem, laughed at Julian's tears, and resumed life on this rock which circumambulates around a sphere of fire until it burns out and spreads death all around the Universe. 'Profound and profane,' thought a weeping Julian as he took the long walk back to his pizza-encrusted couch.

   
  
Rejected by Pindeldyboz

Neil Griffin is a retired memoirist. He spends his days rocking on his chair,
lemonade in hand, while he checks his fancy-pants tablet
for email at nhgriffin003@gmail.com. He refreshes
his inbox to no avail, until he realizes that it's
broken, not unlike the old memoirist's life.
Oh, my old days of glory, he whispers,
where did you run off to? 

back