actors & writers

the theater crowd had the best parties
& were the best looking.

i was good looking
but only in the writing crowd.

in the theater crowd i was like,
meh.

the theater crowd could have been chiseled
by praxiteles.

the writing crowd
played its quirks:

james joyce glasses
on a little rat moustache

a single nurtured 2-inch
whisker:

a surreal thrust from
an imagist cheek.

actors vying
for the same parts

should have been stabbing
each other with prop knives

but i saw only camaraderie
of communal art.

the writers, mired
in the dullest medium,

black scratches
on a bland page,

ideas glued together
with gobs of grammar,

hated each other
as much as they hated

the cruel art
they were stuck with,

fighting with the fervor
inherent in small-stakes games.

they despised with the potency
of pure ego.

me, too: convinced always
& not so secretly

i was the best
writer in the room.

or at least the best looking.