The Fool's Tale Poem by Percy Dovetonsils

Well, as it turned out
he had one shot,
a friend had given him
one freakish shot,
at getting himself
out of the mess
he was in
and he blew it.

He drove through the gates
knowing it was
an important opportunity
or at least
it would have been
had he been
the right man
for it.

He met with the big man,
maybe even lunched with him.
No, it wasn’t lunch,
he was too busy a man
for lunch,
and at a certain point
there came a crunch
in the conversation
which was really
an interview.

The big man said
“For example, scenes need a peak,
need to leave the listeners hanging
so they’ll stay tuned
after the commercial.”
Don’t you agree?
He silently implied.
And the fool replied,
“I’d be a fool to say no.”

Now the big man was angry
and impatient:
“Any fool can make one million a year
doing this. One million.”
And that was when one million
was really a million.
But what he meant was
any fool
who was the right kind of fool,
which this fool
demonstrably was not.


The fool thanked him for his time
and was tempted to apologize
for wasting it
for clearly the big man’s time
was more valuable
than the fool’s
and the fool wished
he could’ve explained
why and how his foolishness
was in every cell of him
and that he would most certainly
expunge it
if only he could
because it would make his life
ever so much easier
but he couldn’t
so he didn’t try
and went back to his
foolish poverty
which would certainly dog him
every day,
every moment,
for the rest
of his foolish life.

After that
he knew,
for a certainty,
as John Cheever once said,
“He would be spared nothing.”
He was incurable
and terminal
and could no more stop
shooting himself
in both feet
than he could right
what was wrong with him
with what was wrong with him
which was all of him.
But knowing that
didn’t make it
any easier.