I opened the brochure and there it was,

An $85,000 check from Columbia Broadcast

Wowee! Zowee! Powee! Kaboom! Purple Thunder!

I knew I started out wrong.

Why's my verse not prose?

I'm standing here in the soup line crying

For a good story line.

The ultimate nouvelle novel to please and

Appease the minions long after dark.

Is this poetry, you might ask?

Heck yes! I spiel--as I sprawl

On concrete on my--last gasp!

--It was in a brochure from a literary agent

It came in the mail.

Hot stuff! You'll agree--with other checks like it

If only they were all for me....

Ah, drifting--dreamland in reality...

If only those checks were for me....

Only those checks were for...

...those checks for me...

Wow! I'd be laughing all the way to the bank

And all the way home

And laughing all next week

And a month after that, 

And the one after that, and after that,

And that, and that, and that.

(then)

I danced a step of a jig and stomped some booger's

Toe. He said, Get a grip mate!

Then this beautiful Amerasian woman said,

Everyone needs a grip, but we've all got 

A right to lose it sometime. Actually,

she said something similar to this,

dare demo iru aru nigiri, da ga warera wa ga see

aru chodo sore wa itsuka. 

That seemed to pacify him momentarily, then

He seemed to drift off into outerspace, and 

That seemed to pacify him momentarily, then

He drifted off into some other place.

The last I saw of him 

His eyes had glazed over and the Amerasian woman

Was calling for a doctor. These

Two guys were leading me away like 

I had fallen through a shop 

Window after drinking too much "Thunderbird."

Yeesh! I uttered a sigh of relief

And a short song of hope for the poor shopkeeper,

And the glazy-eyed guy,

And that's when I knew I'd stumbled upon it,

I was on my way to be the next Mailer or Kerouac

or I'll probably forget.
 

All works by N. Scott Reynolds in the published works of Coffee Break Inspirations are Copyrighted, with All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish has been granted to CrumpledPapers.com. Nothing can be reprinted in any form without express permission from author. Feel free to send request or comments about this poetry to the author N. Scott Reynolds