ersatzian

TOO HURT for poetry, too sad for prose,
he went on down instead to check the scene
at the blues-bar. He stopped to pick a rose
in Central Park but wanting to be seen
a manly-man he threw it out before
he passed a passerby and halfway through
he stopped for a smoke, his feet feeling sore.
Two more miles to go, he thought. Only two.
I must get fit again; if nothing else
it'd give me something to do while writing
the great American novel as telled
by Lester Lu, the only writer _____
who wrote because he was down, I suppose—
too hurt for poetry, too sad for prose.