Here’s to the Fools, Here’s to Abject Failure

I consider him an abject failure;

He’s great with the word, in fact, incredible.

He writes, and the page sings

But he just writes these things,

They made the audience boo him

Like, the story of fucking the vacuum cleaner.

The story was just so damned well written

But no one wants to fuck a vacuum cleaner.

I’m telling you this so that you don’t become that guy

That guy who just sits with his manuscripts in his basement

Who never gets published

Never makes any money

Never has any popularity.

Do you want to end up like that?

Stop marketing your stuff as literary.

Start writing more genre. Seriously.

I mean, you want to make it, right?

Study some craft. Learn what post-modern means.

You say you like Bukowski, but get this:

If you don’t know the other poets, whose style are you going to imitate?

Who will you be like?

We all mimick. If you close yourself off,

Your writing will look like it came from

Planet Venus, I mean, it may be beautiful

But without the social frame of reference

It will fail, you’ll end up alone

Lost forgotten and pathetic

And you don’t want that, do you?

Something tells me that in your supreme arrogance

You think you’ll somehow transcend the form on your own.

It won’t happen. You need to read more.

I read 3-4 hours a day.

You need to know your terms.

I know them subconsciously. I know my form.

I know where I come from. I know the poetry.

You don’t. Not until you know the form. Not until you know the masters

And where the masters came from. Honestly.

What about that nobility? What about writing for the love of it?

Foolish. Why? Why bother? What’s the point?

I cross my legs.

I fold my arms.

I turn my head.

I try to listen but

I can’t. Not really

If I were in it for the money I would have stopped long ago.

If I were in it for the fame, I would have stopped long ago.

If I were in it because I could help it, I would have stopped long ago.

And if I could write genre fiction

Write for an audience

Tell stories that made people happy

And didn’t expose truths

And if I could write about love

Without passion

And sex without

Vaccuum cleaners

I would have stopped long ago

too.