The English Major Dreams
He first gained notoriety for his effortless exegesis
of the instant ramen cooking instructions
at only 20 years old. Soon he was being published
in Sun and curating essays on the literary merits
of prescription pain medication warning labels
for The New Yorker. His poetry collection,
A Wasted Mind is a Terribly Curious Thing, won the Pulitzer,
beating out established poets twice his age.
He got a teaching position at UC Berkely, his own books
(3, by this point) the only texts on the syllabus.
He single-handedly brought the fedora back into style,
and convinced the university to move to a Pass/Fail system.
His weekend salons became legendary, the greatest minds
of his (or indeed, any other) generation having passionate
debates on the topics of the day, followed by consensual
and unproblematic orgies.
When NASA made first contact with alien life, it was he
who they called in to communicate all that it meant to be human.
The aliens, it turned out, were already fans, having intercepted
videos of his lectures and commencement addresses.
Diplomatic relations progressed quickly, helped
by the aliens’ attendance at his hedonistic parties,
and his was the top signature on Earth’s first interstellar treaty.
After a long and productive life, he died in the appendages
of one or more of his many lovers. According to his will,
his body was brought back to Earth and crucified
on the National Mall, his death both a tragedy and a celebration.
Parents brought their children to observe the corpse as they explained
his accomplishments, how, though his flesh may be rotting,
his words endure, cast in bronze and placed atop the Capitol.
They will tell their children how, though heavy
and precariously perched along the arc of the domed cupola,
these words will never fall, never crush the politicians, aids,
guards and news reporters, clerks and janitorial staff,
never disrupt the civic-minded operation of government, because
he was just that good a writer.
Certain of Eventual Failure 