Bly's is the cue ball, his mind
breaking Fitzgerald's rack,
club ties striped and solid but
eight-ball in the corner pocket,
the dark-haired fever of it –
F Scott buried in a pauper's grave
Though Bly is only twelve in 1940
the next morning they're chewing cigarettes
and champagne, tobacco
bubbles and sparkles in their teeth –
light of the sun trespassing
through the empty glasses
Fitzgerald is a flabby edition, his suit dog-eared,
unsteady from the hotel, bookstore to bookstore,
asking for a copy of his books, but no,
his work a has-been, a feather
mourning the precarity of wind
and tremendous fame.
Bly says we're dead now,
whither shall we go?
We lived in the front pocket of delirium,
sorrow and lint to mix for our ink.
Vienna will not have you
nor write on your tomb:
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
Shay’s Word Garden
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qbit 
At least F. Scott should have been well preserved, with all the alcohol. As for Robert Bly, it must have been difficult trying to be manly at 12 years of age, or while dead. What a scene. So glad you took part in my new prompt, qbit!
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Ahahaha! Thanks.
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surely this was penned by Hemingway – pithy, staccato and sparing with the adjectives. Brilliant!
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Thank you so much!!!
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I like the incongruity of pairing Bly and Fitzgerald, each immensely talented, each so very different in their approach to writing and life. I suppose they both were literary flagships for the creative in their eras, and both looking underneath the hood with every phrase…anyway, your own look under the hood here is sharp and apposite. I especially love the way you’ve used the word list, and this line in particular “..We lived in the front pocket of delirium..” Been there, done that, and the tee shirt is so old not sure which holes are for the arms. 😉
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“the tee shirt is so old not sure which holes are for the arms” — fabulous.
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Filmed in living color or in grainy black and white .. I want to screen the “short.” I can count on two fingers the times I’ve held a pool cue in my hands. But I know the lingo. An epic write, qbit.
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Thanks Helen!
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“We lived in the front pocket of delirium,/sorrow and lint to mix for our ink.” — Encapsulates in a nutshell how their lives, driven by their obsessions, bled onto the pages of their books. An absorbing read, qbit, leaving us with a taste of champagne and tobacco juice lingering in our mouths, the closing quote from Gatsby, a graveside prayer.
Pax,
Dora
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Like you said, you can throw a Gatsby quote in just about anywhere and land on your feet, LOL!
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What you have done here is absolutely amazing Qbit from the images and dialogue of two amazing writers! So sorry I did not comment earlier. I guess I should have gone back to the Garden to gander for more wonderful poetry!
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Thanks. I’m so late posting these!
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Well we are both late then, but better late than never right? LOL
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