Walking down the hallway, searching for the nearest exit from the campus building called H, he considered that a small, independent type of publishing company might be the right target for his poetic solicitations.
Searching for a purpose in life
aI strive against and live with strife,
Beginning it in a bright, white glory
Ending in a geriatric laboratory."
No, that's the same strain, he said, inwardly. My poems reek of an out-of-date, Byronic style. That last line might do, a bit more modern. Riding the bus homeward he considered the acerbic tone of the dean whose criticism had barely affected him, being accustomed as he wa to successive rejections, piling up one on another, and an other.
A man goes forth, driving his cattle
Perhaps a serpent couchant makes a rattle,
The herd and he start and stop
At the long day's end, into his bed he drops.
-This bus isn't quite conducive to poetic fancy, he said to himself, as the bus lurched forward, expelling carbonsmoke exhaust into the air. Maybe this is why my poems get so Romantic, I'm subconsciously revolting against my urban milieu. I need to get myself evened out, get outside more often, really outside, in the woods without trails.
He dropped a bill into the driver's lap as a tip. This was a habit he had developed as another idiosyncrasy against the norm: such minor iconoclasm was like his own version of civil disobedience, a chaos magick act, in a minor way. Real rebellion was a different thing altogether than this tepid intellectual stuff.
He got off at Chinatown and crossed the busy street towards the Korean shop that sold him his ginseng. You might find it odd that he would patronize a Korean business in a so-called Chinatown, but I can assure you that your ideas are misfounded.
Oriental dreams of good times, in the West
I live perforce; this West would wrest
Aught that I hold dear and true to my part,
Down to the very last, the inimitable heart.
Tiny bells rang and tinkled as he opened the door and let swing controlledly back to. He approached the counter, knowing what he wanted to buy, and asked for a few grams of dessicated strips of ginseng root (which resembled strips of bacon). He left the shop, chewing on a chip of ginseng, waiting for its haemolytic effect.
For they will be takers of strange drugs,
run-of-the-mill men and thugs.
Beholden to no...
This poetic strain of thought was violently severed by a passing car on the street. He had been woolgathering and almost walked into the path of a car that had the right of way.
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