I’ve been having trouble selling my poems on the street lately…
The 0ther day I approached a gentlemen on Melrose and went in with my pitch. “I have a poem for sale, only $10! It’s a Christmas/Recession sale.”
“$10?” He howled. “What a ripoff!”
“Well, I also have one for $5.”
“What’s the difference,” he asked.
“The one for ten dollars has fifteen lines and the other one only has ten,” I told him.
“Fifteen lines for ten dollars, that’s outrageous,” he argued, as if there is some going rate on high quality poetry.
“Well, these are some finely articulated lines. They’re gorgeous and revelatory and will make you orgasm in your cargo pants. You know, they have a special pocket just for that.”
“Ha. What are you, a poet or a comedian?”
I inhaled deeply and answered… “Well, what’s the difference? Anytime I open my mouth people burst out laughing.”
He paused, looked around at the people passing on the street, swinging shopping bags and indifferent to the postcard malaise. “Okay, fine,” he said somewhat irritatedly. “Give me the one for five dollars.”
I dug it out of my pocket and looked it over before handing it to the man, taking his bill in my hand like a baton — one man passing the disease over to another. “Okay,” I said. “Water it three times a week and take good care of it.”
He shook his head before walking off down Melrose into the winter setting sun. Somewhere nearby a car honked and a homeless person belched in the face of a delicately inebriated starlet.
It was almost seven pm so I rushed home for Jeopardy.
It’s getting harder to sell these poems on the streets these days. People just don’t have the time or money for high art in a recession.
So, now I’m giving them away on the Internet! Enjoy…
The cat
laughed
at the mouse
who asked him,
“aren’t you going to try
to eat me?”
But the cat just sat there,
on its butt,
laughing and
laughing…
