have been reading a book about a rich literary lady 
of the twenties and her husband who 
drank, ate and partied their way through 
Europe 
meeting Pound, Picasso, A. Huxley, Lawrence, Joyce, 
F. Scott, Hemingway, many 
others; 
the famous were like precious toys to 
them, 
and the way it reads 
the famous allowed themselves to become 
precious toys. 
all through the book 
I waited for just one of the famous 
to tell this rich literary lady and her 
rich literary husband to 
get off and out 
but, apparently, none of them ever 
did. 
Instead they were photographed with the lady 
and her husband 
at various seasides 
looking intelligent 
as if all this was part of the act 
of Art. 
perhaps because the wife and the husband 
fronted a lush press that 
had something to do 
with it. 
and they were all photographed together 
at parties 
or outside of Sylvia Beach's bookshop. 
its true that many of them were 
great and/or original artists, 
but it all seems such a snobby precious 
affair, 
and the husband finally commited his 
threatened suicide 
and the lady published one of my first 
short stories in the 
40's and is now 
dead, yet 
I can't forgive either of them 
for their rich dumb lives 
and I can't forgive their precious toys 
either 
for being 
that.