*****

Recorded Reading (4:04):

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/n1gbsai62qbsb1m5pls2a/Guess-Who-Speaks.mp3?rlkey=lyt7bhpmvifx2rg4yj5vbq0yg&st=y8ahcue4&dl=0

*****

The streetside parking beyond this store’s stretch of parking lot and then foliage strip and sidewalk contains a perfect daytime location for the poet ~ sufficiently quiet to make crime-network noisemakers very obvious, close enough to a principal throughway to facilitate street-level surveillance, without excessive road-tilt, and catching sun until late afternoon on her solar panels, all without warming the icebox side of her van.

The poet is even privileged to see a couple of trees in the little patches of sky visible through her windows as she sits inside the vehicle, guarding it day and night from miscreants who possess its master key.

Plentiful parking is, as well, available for shops both to her right and left, and deliveries typically take place on the streets and driveways running behind those stores.

The poet offered this “lover of literature” twenty five times its cost for simply allowing her battery bank to charge behind the counter for four hours once a week, so that she might continue her work online ~ and was refused, point blank, without reason or apology given.

Since it has been made clear here that the poet is no member of literary community meriting even effortless and personally remunerative cooperation, she sees little reason to continue her heretofore consistent and voluntary courteous consideration of making the public space in question her daytime parking location only a couple of times a week.

There are plenty of people who consistently leave their vehicles in available low-demand public locations during each business day, departing, like herself, at its evening close.

*****

Guess Who Speaks

“Book Store Owner and Bookworm”
Though my name tag says I be
I am hardly cognizant,
Literarily,
Of any author sanctioned not
Sanctimon’iously
By precedent, tenure or
Widely sanctioned history

This, at least, somebody
Like myself should know for sure:
Even the greatest poets
Have too often lived too poor

Yet I can look upon the author
Of a present masterpiece
(Offered a coop’rative
Agreement mutual, to ease
My finances and her own need
For the electricities
By which continue readership
Every single day to please),

~ And find any mention
Of “quality” delusional,
Ref’rence to “posterity”
Completely illusional ~

I prefer my poetry
Modern and confusional
And find classic rhyme and meter
Esthetic’lly abusional

That poet is no member
Of my own community
(Though she promised she would cover
My cost twenty five times over)
If I were caught befriending her
As she has befriended me
Heaven knows that I would be
In such hot water socially!

I make no exception
For one who labors, just like me,
Seven days a week for her
National community

I serve something, it is clear,
But it’s not even close (hear, hear!)
To anything
Resembling
Holding literature dear

*****

This poet/editor is physically disabled, and lives at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level.

Arts patrons may visit http://www.UgiftABLE.com , using code 72D-31S. It will take about two weeks for the poet to be notified of your patronage.

International donors please contact the poet for special instructions.

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