Don’t tell me that you never wrote that novel.
It’s a lie. I was with you as pen touched paper
and while your consciousness streamed.
Each night in the bar I bought you drinks.
I gave you my ears to hear the music,
my eyes to study the art of the female form.
All your inspiration came from me, traded
like baseball cards or comic books between brothers,
when you know the item is no longer yours,
but it’s close, so you can look at it, touch
it,
reminisce in proximity should the need arise.
I filled your head from my fountain, and you
drank.
Don’t tell me that you never wrote that novel.
I witnessed its creation from beginning to end
like an angel of the Lord studying man from Genesis.
I spoke if words escaped you, listened if they
didn’t.
I put the tingle in your crotch if your sex scenes
were too subtle, and I winced if they were overblown.
But I smiled and sighed at each vulgarity,
keeping in mind that something profound
lurked underneath in the shadow of a thought,
waiting to pounce upon an unsuspecting world.
Don’t tell me that you never wrote that novel.
You did, I remember well. I typed it, transcribing
your unique brand of hieroglyphic longhand.
Now I can see why your fourth-grade teacher
deemed you destined to become a physician.
For me, it might have been easier to translate
from the Russian without any formal training.
But I managed, as always, with patience, and
from there I went on to edit your split infinitives,
comma-splice errors, and faulty deductive reasoning.
No, don’t tell me that you never wrote that novel,
although it’s been rejected for the umpteenth
time.
I stayed on after the first, and I’ll be there
after
a hundred or a hundred thousand, if it takes
so long.
Publishers are a difficult breed to figure out.
Some didn’t enjoy your words. Others were offended.
Many didn’t read it at all, no doubt, but a few
did
and they favored it, praising the poetry, the
passion.
How many times have you heard the term ‘backlog?’
Have you figured out what it means? No matter.
Never give up. It’s merely a question of guiding
the work into more receptive hands. After all,
half who read the book didn’t understand it.
Hell, you can’t understand it sometimes.
It’s a different part of your life, a different
you,
pages and pages of bad metaphors about
what you used to be and dreams you used to dream.
But they were your dreams, your bad metaphors.
No one else could lay claim to them. So don’t
tell me that you never wrote that novel. Please
don’t tell me that you never wrote that novel.
You’ve given it to me, my most prized possession,
and if you didn’t write it, neither it nor I are real.
© 1999 - French Bread Publications/Ace Boggess