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Page 39.
 She pulled the sheet further up. “I don’t want to be distracted by your cigar, mon cher. I want to focus on you poetry, your music, your painting with words and rhythms.”
He snapped the elastic on his shorts for a comfortable fit, and slipped a loose-fitting moss-green tunic-shirt over his bare torso. “Very well, so here I have a nice one. I’ll explain it to you when I’ve read it. I think we have to pause for a moment and clear our minds.”
They reposed in stillness, while the magnificent city whispered outside like a great park fountain in its ceaseless hiss of human life. Like a radio on no particular station, just static.
“Here is one that I placed in a university literary magazine. It’s called Philosopher King.” He saw the pained look on her face, and said: “Don’t worry. Just float along with it. Imagine that I’m taking out my saxophone and I am just toodling away for you. Nothing special, just some impromptu music.” He added: “While I am reading just words, you might try to picture something in your mind. A painting, a sculpture, a scene.”
He read the short poem titled The Philosopher King.
Afterwards, she was rapt and as curious as she was pleased. “It bursts on me sort of out of nowhere, the way a horn starts playing at the start of a sinfonia. That’s the opening little symphony of an opera, or the overture. I like how your voice is clear, and steady, and focused.”
Oh my god she appreciates me.
“I’m thrilled that you like it.”
“I have a feeling that you are saying you are a king of solitude.”
“That’s about it, I think. Whatever inspires a poem deep inside of me, ultimately it has to be about what happens when someone reads it or hears it.”
“It evokes something in me.” She laughed. “I’m not sure what.”
“Maybe we can’t put words to it. That’s why we have poetry, which is as much music as it is words.”
She continued: “I feel like a philosopher queen myself. Alone, and marbled with aching sunshine or moonlight.”
“Don’t make fun.
“I’m not, my love. I am relating as best I can. You really are a king, and you are filled with wisdom. You are a rebel, and your truth is self-contained. I can appreciate that. You’re not holding anyone’s cigar.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He ruffled through his stack of papers. “I type them after I write them.”
“How do you work?”
“I always carry a pen and paper, or my tablette, and I compose on the spot wherever I am. The short ones. At night, when I am up too late, I crank out the longer ones that run for more than a page. One of these days, I might write an epic poem, but I’m not sure I have that in me. One day, I will probably stop writing poetry and turn to long prose forms.
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