[Newspoetry] After the Scampi

[wordwork at shout.net]

[first paragraph is meant to be prose]

...

Stephen King is cutting out the Middleman and wants to sell to his readers
directly from <a href="http://www.stephenking.com/download.html">his own
website</a>: a buck a chapter, on the honor system.

King's editor is terrified, 
and calls King on 
King's cellular late at 
night, when King is 
relaxing in his four-
poster bed with a 
Dover Thrift Edition of 
<i>Frankenstein</i>, and King's editor 
reminds King that King
never mastered the difference 
between "whether" and "if."
King's editor doesn't think 
that King can finish 
a story without him.

King assures his 
editor the story
will be clean
and hangs up.

Meanwhile, King's 
publisher is about
shitting hardback 
bestsellers over 
the whole thing.

So King's publisher arranges
for a four martini
lunch with King and
King's banker at The 
Four Seasons. After the 
scampi King's publisher tries
to reason with King.

"You'll need a blurb" he blurts
"And an honest-to-God frigging
ISBN number. And what about copyright?
Don't you know those cretins will
market your work as their own?"

King's banker asks King
how he's going to 
track his own profits 
"With a piggy bank?"

the banker jokes. 
King brushes his 
long hair aside.

"Yes."

King's grin is devlish, elven
his unblinking gaze
lycanthropic.

Both banker
and publisher
agree that 
King is
gravely underestimating
money made
off books.
Then the 
waiter interrupts,
asks King
to sign
an ancient
tattered $
2 used
bookclub
massmarket
paperback
copy of

<i>Carrie</i>.

(shoplifted)

"Movie 
rights"
King's
publisher
hisses.

King doesn't respond:
he is playing
with a lemon 

wedge,
thinking
about
Newspoetry.