Writing

Writing

Still, the people want to read about
themselves. Not your experience, 
but theirs, or that which you can recreate 
for them from your limited knowledge
of their expectations of themselves.

And though you know you know
them not at all, not really, 
there is little room for error.
And the greatest of virtues is to
entertain them as you inform them
of what they don’t know they already 
know. That’s the sellable stuff.

But this is my thinking: that the writer
is most like an arrogant butcher,
believing he cleaves out for them
the best cuts they have to offer and
can stomach, drained of all familiar
humor, the blade so sharp
they don’t notice his lack of practicable skill,
nor that the meal smacks so cannibal.

An artist who despite all evidence available 
is never satisfied by his own puny experience 
remaining forever in existential crisis, and would
if it were possible become his own autopsist.