It was said once that the inspiration
For a writer dries up with age.
Subtly, I feel it.
I feel the East Wind blowing
The West Tides making their slumbering folds
Upon the sanded beaches.
How the waves shape the beach
And the unending cycling of the powers
Of West and East
Make their revolving cyclones.

And I say, I am satisfied with what I have written.
Unlike the elder author
Whose craft has dried up
The imagination's liquor
Dried up, and the inebriation
Of the mental waves of peace and love.
I have had a good writing career.

Now, I have one more feat.
I must get them read.
How, I do not know.
But, I will, like a hermit in a cloister,
Cling to God, my work,
And read and write the numerous thoughts
I entertain.
Though, that imagination is dried up
The well, there are things by which I occupy myself with
Which satisfy just as much as my creativity.
Piano and Hand Drums are not so interesting to me
As they were in my youth,
So it is that writing is not as interesting to me now.
And I feel at peace, that I have climbed mountains like Everest
I had forded trenches as deep as the Marianas,
I had written Kitsch---so it was called once, though it is the best of what I've written---
I had written literary masterpieces.

I am satisfied with my work.
And I cannot see anything more to be done,
Except to wait on God to get it the notoriety it needs.
Must I create my avatar of fame?
I wish not to, rather but be the man I am
And allow all to see the man I am.
The mute man at the clinic
Told me I was not a good man.
I am not a good man---
But Christ is a good man
Enough for both of us.
And I wish not to have my Avatar of fame
I wish to eat my pound of flesh
Bed my wife...

What will occupy my time?
What will I do?
It is in my thoughts to escape to the Amish
To garden with them.
Though I am weak. Very weak.
Though they will make me strong
For the Daughter of Zion
So I can inherit my bride
My wife... the portion of all Israel;
A beautiful city like a woman.
And we shall be wedded to her
And women shall be wedded to God.

I am satisfied with life.
Very satisfied.
I am satisfied with discovering the truths hidden in everything.
I am satisfied with my creative endeavors
Though I am no longer as creative as I once was.
I am very satisfied.
And I shall wait upon my work
Anxiously. And when it is discovered
I shall be satisfied even more.
I shall be satisfied by my Woman's Beating Heart
And I shall be satisfied with my work I have done in the world.
I have done much work.
Labored plenty in the arts of wisdom---
And even some folly---
I have been made insane by the knowledge of magic
And made whole by the knowledge of faith;
I had been made a partner with the great men of letters
Whom I have sucked from, and taken their wisdom from them
And recycled it for a new generation.
I have even contributed my own thoughts.
And I shall wait for them to be heard.
 
But, my writing is waning.
I understand this.
I shall not be frustrated as Eric Hoffer's True Believer is
When the well dries up.
For I can cook, I can play instruments, I can occupy myself with the ideas of others.
I can find the liquor of all words
And derive their sense.
I can find it in those whom I disagree with...
Seek to understand what truth makes them confess their falsehood.
I can find it in those I agree with, and be offended by the falsehoods I see.
I can sit patiently, and dialogue, and enjoy conversation.
I can discern the meaning in a malapropism.
I can even discover the meaning of life.

There is work for this writer to do
But I have touched upon all wisdom with my craft.
Furtherance of it---
And I will go further, but not much---
Is not necessary.

Dear,
Thomas Chatterton

I had just recently become acquainted with you, from reading my Southey work. He had patronized you as a saint. Though, your life didn't seem so saintly, Southey obviously felt you were worthy to gain admittance to the Celestial City in his Vision of Judgment.

Often we authors contrive schemes, to get us published. To make ourselves rich. You had died young, as a teenager, by committing suicide. I can understand the sentiment of wanting to end your own life, when hunger and want are daily a part of it. Need you have waited the month or two to be discovered? I'd say most likely not.

Had you just gained possession of your work, instead of write in a damn pseudonym, you may have obtained all that you want. Or, like is the case with me, you could have been trying to move into a sphere of class which couldn't want you. I am aware that by name America is free, but it is riddled with the same class struggles you yourself felt.
 
Was it that your work was just discovered? Or was it that they knew you were dead, and now could bestow honor upon you without giving you the riches you deserved? Had you not assumed a pseudonym, perhaps none of your work would survive today. As it is, I can read your entire work, and it is collected, and easier to obtain than Robert Southey's.

I don't understand you--- not now when I am wise. Why didn't you just put your real name on your writing? And then you could have prospered immediately, rather than sacrifice them to the alter of a pseudonym? Did you have some grand scheme of design, where they would discover your name, and know you had written masterpieces? Well, they did, and you hadn't earned from them.
 
Yet, it is not your fault. I would never blame you. For, I too am suffering under a different, but equally vexing problem. In my age, Mr. Chatterton, nobody reads poetry anymore. So, even if the greatest poet wrote, or the greatest in two generations, none would know of it. But I will not commit suicide. Because I am stubborn, and I will eat, drink, and be vexed so that my old age proves I was a wise man. For there is yet much to discover in this world, and I am not privy to leaving it until I had exhausted all of its vanity, and satisfied myself that Solomon was right.

However, I do not want the world. Only to understand it. To live among it. To know its great belle lettres, to familiarize myself with all of its hidden compartments. To know every culture, and their peoples. Only so I can save some of them, and therefore have the company I so lack at this current moment.

Truthfully, I want to die, but am not one who wishes to take on the Tradition of Crea, as Montaigne puts it. I don't like suicide. Life is too precious to waste, even though I am poor. And likely I am happier poor, so that way I can say, "LORD, I am among the poor." And receive my blessing. Yet, let me never be so poor that I steal. Nor so rich that I forget the LORD.

Truthfully, your story was one of few poets who I read. As your tragic life is more poetic than Mr. Rowley's forgeries. Why did you have to do that?

Yet, to earn a wage from my poetry, I would not despair. To have a small flock of people by which I could shepherd through these illiberal times, I would not despair. To have my bookshelf, and the occasional portion of flesh, I am satisfied. Really I am because I am not poor. And my office is like a monk's, compiling through wisdom to draw out Christ. As the monks would be in the same office I myself am in. And I am in a little monastery, isolated from everyone. Surrounded by a few family members. I am not unhappy.

Would my society come and burn my books? Likely not, so I am satisfied with them, and the compendium of knowledge on this internet. Do I want success? Only for many people to read my work. I do enjoy solitude. But I enjoy a woman's company, too. Which I have yet to obtain. I could be satisfied writing my works and enjoying the company of a woman. Nor am I mad like I once was, as that demon had been exorcised from me.

I am like a sage monk, living in his reclusiveness, compiling odes. Yet, let me be famous only for the sake of having not wasted my time writing things nobody would read or enjoy. To have a steady salary from my writing, I would enjoy it. To eat from this labor. Yet now I am satisfied, for this one moment. Yet, why did you have to use a pseudonym?

Perhaps it is like me, where my class prevents me from being disposed to write high poetry. Perhaps the publishers are waiting for me to commit suicide, so they can pounce on my craft and pick at it like vultures. That way my rotten name isn't among it. They are like that, you know? I don't think you died in vain, as you would have waited many years before you were famous. They knew you had died, and wanted to create a narrative with your life.

Mine won't be that way. I shall live stubbornly, and they shall suffer. I will make them suffer. For they aren't prying this from me. And when I die, they will be forgotten. 

Dear,
Mr. Hemingway

I would have been more like F. Scott Fitzgerald, so I know the two of us would have butted heads.

However, underneath that bravado was a sensitive soul, who was chief among my friends in letters.

You reamed masculinity. You hunted Rhinoceri, you hunted Lions, Tigers, Bears. I'm sure you shot a few Ostriches in your day. I'm completely different than you, except in my hatred of war and injustice. I know working in the Red Cross brought your insights into the Spanish Civil War. And Pilar is a masterpiece of a character; you are the only storyteller I've read who knew to do flashbacks in the form of oral stories. I hadn't borrowed that from you--- Organically, I figured it out for myself. But yours are just as organic.

Had the two of us ever met, you'd probably say of me "He's a polymath." Meaning I'd be able to write in several different genres. Though, I wrote them well, you were the master of the novel. Though, I hadn't read a good short story from you yet.

The Old Man and the Sea is my treasure. It inspired my own "The Riddle in the Sea". Just in its titular appeal, however it was the story Steinbeck's Pearl was aiming to be. The Pearl is boring. The Old Man in the Sea kept me up reading all night.

We'd not get along, in that jesting manner. In my youthful days we'd have probably tangled once or twice. You'd win, of course. I was a lousy fighter, but don't tell me that when I was a young buck. I was a good wrestler, pound for pound. That was about it. I actually subdued an opponent once who was trying to kill me--- a legit madman.

However, I respect you as a man and as a sincere friend. I am not a drinker, a smoker, a fighter. And when I say we would not get along, I mean it only in the sense that we're cut from different chords. Not maliciously. For I'd be honored to have gotten beat by Mr. Hemingway in a brawl. 

Sure enough, though, when all is said and done, you were a good man. A knowledgeable man. A respectable journalist. A novelist and a scholar.

I could never craft a story as well as you. My best stories aren't able to match yours. I do not conjure your ghost, so rest in peace Mr. Hemingway. Only, that I hope it wouldn't offend you that I say we wouldn't get along. It wouldn't be violent, nor bitter. It'd just be like two birds, a blackbird and a robin.

I the blackbird, the Poet crying of injustices in the land. You the Red Breasted Robin, walking like a man, and the sign of a budding spring.