David,

Nice work, but
If you knew how hardened
my heart and how thick my skin...
Your claims would be tempered with a question mark
Can I make you cry? May I, please?
Results guaranteed.
David, I decided at age 17

on the corner of McCleod
and Helen in the dark
that the joke’s on me (I can
never know why), but it is
funny.

All the Whos in Whoville
can avow. To find them, look
for the elephant in the living room,
Who, to quote a Wikipedian, ‘is ridiculed
and nearly murdered by the other animals,
such as the Wickersham Brothers and the Sour
Kangaroo.’

It is strange to be the inspiration of such bitterness,
especially in a one I have only always adored. That part is sad, true.
With your ire as a muse, though,
your writing is lean and mean – toothy.

Ouch!
Infamously,
(I am sorry about that)

Jenny

tear-jerk report:
Inexplicably yesterday listening to _______ sing. Cloud ninety.

Jenny, that comment knocked me all around the room, confounding me and leaving me close to frustration if not tears. Who in sweet tarnation is the "one" in whom you inspired such bitterness? And what is Horton -- lovely, tragic Horton -- doing in this wordscape?

In truth, I am not a method actor, though I attended a workshop here in Tokyo that involved a half-mad, half-Swedish genius pianist, twenty-seven yowling cats, rivers of tears, and the theft of quite possiby the world's coolest cardigan. One woman asked me to run away to France with her and join a "Butoh" troupe, but it wasn't to be -- I hadn't the balls . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butoh

I couldn't method-act my way out of a trite dialogue, let alone make anyone cry. That job, making people cry, was the teacher's, and she did it with gusto.

So, that is my comment.

David,

Your mystification is almost
convincing. But hey where's the virtue
in dishing it out if'n one shore nuf cain't take it?

For example: my Horton is detained
for questioning at the wordscape border,
while a cast of fantastical thousands freely files past.

Though I know you as having a jumbo
soul, such double-standards can only
exist where all parties are not
held equally to account.

Take it from me; humble pie can be sustaining.
Even fantastic.
Jenny

Jennifer, I'm not questioning Horton's right to exist in your fevered imaginings -- never that! I'm simply wondering what his role is there; I was playing hooky the day they taught metaphors and poeto-riddles at method-acting school. Truly, I am befusticated.

Humbled? Oh, I've been humbled. Recently, I've been calling an excellent fellow named Eric "Dan." I even wrote a letter to him starting with a hearty "Dan!" I gave him a book in which I wrote a small greeting beginning with "Dan!" Perplexed, he wrote back and told me that there must be some kind of mistake. I cringed like a champion, I tell you. But is that being humbled or merely mortified? Both, maybe?

David

David,

Sorry about the "Dan" debacle. Oy!
That had to be humiliating.

Frere, for me to substitute any official story
for that of which I am informed by my viscera,
would be mortification indeed. & I just can't be
sorry about that.

You are right that I can be too froward and fevered
in my approach; sometimes the old swash needs buckled.

At your service,
Jennyfer