THE MAN WHO INVENTED THE STICKY POO DOLL, AND OTHER THINGS, John ANDREW DURLER Sr. [simple ebook reader .txt] 📗

I burned.
I said. "I’ll give it another shot after I finish the pack I have in my pocket, and the carton I have in my luggage."
They both smiled knowingly. We got high, silly, sang old songs and pretty soon the conversation drifted to poetry and writing.
Marty said, "I can’t wait for the millennium. I want to see all the shit the editors and educators come out with. The big, six syllable words on sterile pages so I can puke.”
“Why do you think that’s the way it’s going?” I asked. “There’s a lot of good writers out there, fresh language, green language.”
“They won’t get any grants.” Marty said. “They won’t be published in the slicks.
They will read and write the finest, most shining texts, and will lead the young poets, who will follow in their footsteps. They will die trying to write the great poem.
"The world will revere Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, William Carlos Williams, Pablo Neruda, etc., etc. Literature will Make icons of Danielle Steel and Stephen King. The formula will be the only way to publication.
Editors and Publishers do not take chances. Judy Bloom can write anything, anything, and thousands of stories better than hers will never see print. The world is a testing ground where intellect and ignorance clash. Humanity can never see itself and if it did it would die in its own denial.”
“Marty,” I said, “you really have a hard on for Publishers and editors. I’m a publisher and editor.”
“Yes, but do not control the publication. You publish and edit what is already selected.”
“That’s true, Marty. No one ever published anything of mine except some poems, one in a prestigious quarterly. I published my books myself.”
“OK, you bastards,” Lisa said, feeling neglected. “Cut the bullshit depressing me to death with millennium portends of demised poets and writers and let’s get to goddamn doing something enjoyable and uplifting to joyous and revolutionary to change the fucking world you don’t fucking like.”
Her eyes blazed. Her hair, I swear electrified. She was pissed.
"That's going to take time." I said, "Right now, I'm sweating. Is the water swim-able. Any sharks, moray ells, poisonous starfish, or jellyfish, because it looks so good and beautifully refreshing."
"We can all cool off and relax and do a beach thing afterward, and talk about the state of things." Lisa said.
All agreed. I assumed it was safe in the water. The beach was red and white sandy powder. It did not burn the feet, was warm enough to stand or sit. We three agreed naked was OK, but I still wore a bathing suit, feeling insecure, and found I could look at both without embarrassment or erection. They both jeered me for my shyness, but didn’t pursue it. We swam, played water ball, floated, drifted, built lopsided, ever crumbling castles in the sand, drank lemonade with pineapple juice sparked with Russian Vodka, sunbathed and munched on fruit. Marty said, "Don't go in the water at night. Sharks and poisonous creatures swim in close."
I was getting antsy and wanted to do something with adventure. I said so and they both jumped at it. We sat in the sand and thought and thought, but didn’t come up with anything agreeable to us all. I finally said I’d turn in and get some sleep.
Marty showed me to a room in the back of their cottage, a huge palm tree growing in the middle. A fairly large hammock was roped to it and to a wooden pole at the other end, which had a towel and bag full of bathroom stuff hanging from it. In the corner was a pool about eight feet round which was fed by a stream that flowed down from the mountain behind the house. I stayed for two weeks, and went back home. Three weeks later, I opened the New York Times and saw their faces. They were smiling, getting on a plane. The six passenger Lear Jet never made it. They never found it, or them. Three days later, I received a postcard, saying they were going to a Poet and Writing Symposium and would be in New York to pick me up to "Give them hell!" I still wonder how they died, or if they died.

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Publication Date: 04-04-2010

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