Unanswered Questions

There are certain Qs for which there may be no A. For instance, where do dead birds go? Or more importantly how did my collection of bumbblegum cards disappear? Or what happens to failed poets?

I shall tackle the third proposition since I am intimately acquainted with the species. in fact, I'm one of them. Some of them (us) are running workshops instructing others how to be one. There's nothing wrong with a nation of failed poets.

Most are unrecognizable having been absorbed into the hum-drum life. Perhaps that guy in the market who waters the lettuce is one or the checker who let me in the express lane with eleven items. Ordinary folks... of this world but not quite in it.

It needs to be said that by most measure's in our greed-driven society the term successful poet is an oxymoron. At best we put up with them as court jester or some nuisance on the far margins.

Before taking my place in line I generally let others speed through the checkstand in a happy stupor with bar codes beeping obediently. I prefer the queue that barely moves horizontally but offers vertical flight instead; where else but from my weekly fill of tabloids. A cursory glance at the headlines convinces me that I have located the sanctuary of failed poets.

If there isn't a story about inter-galactic visitations then it's another citing of JFK or Elvis or the nonagenarian child found frozen on the sunken Titanic.

I'd love to sit in on the meeting room of the fabulists, that garden of fecund minds where gossip grows wild and baby alligators are hatched into our plumbing. I knew I was on to something when I read about half a mermaid found in a tuna fish sandwich.

One less question to ponder; as for dead birds maybe the answer is in the tabloids.