Hem

i wonder what Ernest would think
if he could visit me in my house
in my room in my corner
and rest his naturally
heavyweight frame
on an over-stuffed chair
while a cold draft of beer cooled
his pencil-less hand?
Would he read my writing and
say I was alive or
say the stuff was dead?
He could often be stern
and steely honest, with an eye
hard on the stone fragment
of realism.
He liked Henry James, for one,
and I read The Blue Hotel
by Crane, another of his
favorite short story writers.
Mark Twain should be read for
Huckleberry Finn, he thought.
Once, he said that all modern American
literature comes from that
single book.
Well then, find it and read it
and come to your
own conclusion
before the conclusion
comes to you.