Scribblers' Dilemma (or, veal couplets)

Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste . . . I've been around for long, long years . . .

Well, two out of three ain't bad.

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I am (for all practical purposes) version 2.0 of Roger, embarking on the second half of his life. Make of that what you will. Woof.

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I write, read, think, create. I have an I.Q. of 147, which puts me a full percentile over the Mensa line, which means that I'm a chimp with superior verbal skills.

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"Dance like there's no one watching." I read that once, on the wall of a Jimmy John's Sandwich Shop, and later heard it attributed to Mark Twain. I've gotta look that up.

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The foolowing [sic] is mine, though:

Paper and pixels, pencils and pen,
Reminding us always of who, what, and when.

Always the where, sometimes the why,
Sometimes to laugh, sometimes to cry.

The journalist details a kiss or a tiff;
But the scribble--the scribbler--s/he answers, "What if . . . "

It isn't just stanzas, lined up in rows.
Obedient soldiers, aligned toe-to-toe.

"I'll give you syntax!" s/he bellows in rage,
"Attribution be damned! It isn't your page!"

Now the point-of-view shifts, w'out reason nor rhyme,
For the journalist scribbler, at last has its time:

"You psycho-pathetic fools," s/he decries,
"Gnawing on plots like pigs in a sty.

"Worrying marrow, tendons, and fat,
"To find just the right word--How obsessive is that?"

"Grammar's for sissies, spell check's for asses,
"I have but an hour to write for my classes.
"Now, where in the f*** did I put my glasses?"

"Professor won't notice, he's overworked, tired.
"He's reading each week, keep it up and he's fired."

"Tomorrow, it's Vegas, next day it's Frisco.
"Keeping things straight 'board the old Red Eye Disco."

But this is 'bout me, not some silly classes.
These workshops are bull****, the students all asses."

Who struggle obsessively o'er verb tense and noun,
Sensitive always to a workshop-mate's frown.

Like Pollack before me, I drip prose on a page.
No one can auger the crud I display.

Ah ha! Here's my grade, I wonder what it . . .
No! this can't be right! My Mom's gonna s***!

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Have you ever noticed that whenever somebody begins a sentence with, "I'm one of those people who are very frank and honest . . . ," or, "I believe in telling it like it is . . . ,"or the equivalent, whatever follows is unlikely to be either frank or honest, or anything of that ilk. Nasty or vicious is more likely. Frankness and honesty have little to do with the speaker's motivations: whatever follows is meant solely to maim.

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I carry always a Number 3 pencil, not for me the tyranny of templates and stencils,
To write in my journal; with a sturdy eraser, to expunge the many mistakes that grace her pages.
A Number three trumps a one or a two:
It neither smudges nor smears, leaving this poor, woebegone scribbler in tears.

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You can tune a guitar, but you can't tuna fish.
You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose; but you can't pick your friend's nose.


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