A FICTION WRITER PENS HIS OBITUARY - Poem

 

A FICTION WRITER PENS HIS OBITUARY
 
(Copyright 2021, by Dave Kiffer)
 
"Start at the beginning,"
 
No bleep, Sherlock,
 Except shouldn't I pick
A midlife cliffhanger
To draw them in and keep
Them turning pages until
They get to the end?
 
Right.
 
I die in the end,
That's the spoiler,
Especially for me.
 
"Write what you know."
 
Sounds easy,
like falling off a bike
Over and over again,
I've been mining that lode
My whole life -
which it turns out
Was not as long
as I was counting on.
Anyway, I'm not sure
which diamonds are real
And which ones are not,
Anymore.
 
"Use realistic characters."

Realism would be
Writing about a man
Sitting in a room
With no windows
No friends, no life,
No story to tell,
Except how he faced
A blank page
Every freaking day
And then had lunch.
 
"Let the story tell itself."
 
I have always been a vessel,
But a conscious one,
The story comes to me
But I still have
To pull the strings.
I am Geppetto.
 
No
 
I was Geppetto
Buried in wood dust
Until only my nose
Stuck out.
 
"Revise and Edit."
 
I always wrote
For posterity
That made the
Lagging sales
Easier to take
Now I will be
Beethoven
Rising in a crypt,
Blotting out
The resolutions
That no longer work.
 
"Make sure you change the names."
 
That only matters
If you are worried
About a lawsuit,
and I don't think
They serve papers
where I am going,
Besides, I want them
To know I WAS writing
About them.
After I am gone.
 
"Put it away when you are finished"
 
Up to now
I have had trouble
Knowing when that was,
There is always
One different word,
One new character,
Another sub plot.
But
In this case
That will be
The easiest step
For me, to follow.


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