This one merits an explanation in advance. 🙂

I’ve spent a lot of my life around creative people. A lot of people dressed in black, long overcoats, occasional breakdowns (while I was the resident assistant for the creative arts floor, we “only” suffered through a few mental breakdowns, one drug-induced miscarriage, one fire, one suicide attempt, and a half-dozen alcohol poisonings…), and of course, talent.

I’ve also now gotten to know a few “guru” types — particularly from the world of SF (yes, Bruce, David, Cory, if you’re reading this, I mean you). There’s some patterns to be seen (and I hope they don’t take offence!). A habit of preparing and practicing good phrases to drop into conversation. A certain manner about them that combines a brilliant mind with a certain degree of performance — expansive gestures and a fired-up passion about whatever they happen to be talking about. Getting past that to get to know them can be a little tricky, actually.

Well, long ago, “The Imaginary Playmate Speaks” opened the door to a series that I called “the genius poems.” They were about an “invisible playmate” who was, in some ways, the dominant partner. Someone who had the qualities described above: the aspects of guru and of talent and of, yes, kook. Someone who was both right and also needed puncturing.

I wrote a hell of a lot of these; probably thirty or more. This one here is one of the more sarcastic ones.

Of course, by posting this, I am giving away all of my secrets, and now all of you can get as many speaking invites and interviews as you like!

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a love poem

Towards the soundhole they come closer together—
crunched at the high notes, hash marks
on mahogany. They lay there, unconscious,
limp under fretting fingers; the strings do all the work.
After a few million notes they wear down, melt
into the wood, develop smaller hash marks of their own,
calluses where I press their spines.
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I only did two poems based on aquarium fish, and really, one of the fish was an amphibian. The african clawed frog we had almost seemed like a robot — he lived just to eat. Eventually, this caused his demise, when he inadvisedly attempted to swallow the head of a kuhli loach. Kuhli loaches, like other loaches, have blades somewhere near their head, or sharp barbels, or something. Enough to do some damage, at any rate.

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