Karla asked me why I write poetry.
At least if you wrote eulogies, she said,
You might make new friends,
Open a few doors.
Perhaps then, she said,
And this while she drank straight from the bottle,
Then, she repeated, at least then I might witness
A modicum of progress,
Within this illusion of yours,
And I might understand the purpose of
This infinite investment of your time.
And maybe, she said,
As she pulled a heavy hit from her cigar,
White nimbus rings,
Rolling, roiling perfect doughnuts,
Appeared like tricks,
Out of her o shaped mouth,
One after the other,
All perfectly constructed
As they drift and hang ghost-like
In the dull-dead New York night-time air.
Karla never rests.
And in an act of chronic defiance,
She manages to perfectly project
One smoke ring through the other,
And I slow clap until she smiles
And drinks again
Then , she continued,
Still talking about the only reason I don't **** myself-
Then, she repeated, she was more drunk than me,
When the accolades come, she said,
I could tolerate your never ending fuss and substitution,
That masquerades as improvement.
I write verse to camouflage my despair, I said
Only poets are openly allowed to be moody,
Self centered,
Disorganized,
Angry,
Drunk,
Inconsolable,
Dishonest,
And still be invited to the best parties, I said,
Where, I continued, I get to the person
Everyone else is glad they are not.
Then you have achieved your goal.
Karla nodded at me and smiled,
She blew another six perfect bracelets,
Six new jelly fish floated across to me,
We watched in silence,
Before she took another
Cheek swelling swig of
Macallan's twelve year old.