(Conversation?)

deuce steadies the stare used to penetrate advantage earned assimilated self then speaks, “Yes Elizabeth but when my words are i am needy, the caveat is, i’m not greedy: Would you assert there is no dance, French forms’ the dead, poetic value lacks the function of the rhyme?”

Dear reader, you are receptor, sponge, sounding board, critic and the final arbiter inside the brain that musters to this constant debate now waged among the four who, dwelling within, must agree. I, with you, must tune my inner ear, ‘less I miss eavesdroppers’ notice of Elizabeth adjusting the angles made by her slightly bent glasses, now speaking in polished voice, “Dear Deuce, you always use small case for name and for the pronoun I. This lack of self to be assured not noticed in your work? You are indeed so m....”
She stops.

deuce retorts quickly, “Your word was much; dance partner of which, is touch: My point.”

Elizabeth ponders her most inward depths of human personality asking Cricket,
“Quiet on this, are you not?” Cricket smiles that wide, wonderful, loved Peace that is indigenous to being thankful, alive, softly says, “Whatever’s fair.”

toni, can’t hold: Too bold. The lyricist, never in doubt, wonders if debate even knows what it’s about, removes those glasses then screams that scream posed from inside the human puzzle, “Today’s world is too lazy for classical form: Sestina’s dead, Rondel’s in dread,....”
Continuing with less voracity, smidgen less intensity, and much less internal volume,
“...readers with a capital R, whose interest you debate Most see exposition disguised as poetry, second-rate ”

Elizabeth views the Toni personality as a soft target; mental tone bespeaks superior thought, “You’re mired in D-N-A. Shut up, sit down, be labor.” toni mumbles, with a self inflicted emotional pout, “...they sing what deuce writes; Tech-Manuals, my scholar, from what you pen to print.” The bruised personality, retreats, drifts, in self rejection.

deuce, crinkles the eyebrows yielding a quizzical expression upon their shared face, whines,
“Deggg...Cricket, would you weigh in before going to the courts?” Cricket, twirling the tennis racquet, controlling the flesh with tempered care, states the obvious, “Whatever’s fair.”

Elizabeth, unbearable baggage to two and adults’ mistake to Cricket, is resisting tennis for cable news: With resignation she sighs, “You all will starve. None grasp the what of Poetry nor that for which publishers pay.”

deuce with firm expression insists, “Convert this to a French Rondel; enter it for time to tell ” toni, sheepishly responds in tune, “Maybe ‘ too much out of touch’ is fine. So edit one more line to mine.”

Elizabeth rarely speaks outside the mind but voices her final chagrin, “Am I trapped inside a cartoon? A writer of novel, shepherd of this unruly flock of poets! So Leave the burden on me to center our first read debate.”

Cricket, never sensed without insistence, of few words, without resistance, frankly cares for life in balance: Is the last to send a thought, “Would it offend you to include vernacular’s poem, ‘Nope, Don’t Matter’?”

Quiet blanks this house of flesh wherein four writers dwell.
Debate again tomorrow:
Tonight, all slept well.

Copyright © 2006 toni