THE NOVELIST

The novelist
had the Empire's earth
as his cloister,
inherited a fortune
from a Parisian cousin
twice removed
having a dozen paintings
in the Louvre,
walked in white flannels
between two channels
on the bedecked sea
as a home harbor oyster
but was no Tory,

With Nietzchean gloom
as a dwarfish niebelung
with Mannichean doom
in a rough language tongue,
without much desired hope
even when young
barely holding onto humanity
with a bridle on his horse
to be swashbuckling writer
in the 19th century,
could not naturally abide
in Dickension penury
back benches
or the bourse
and any Popery of course,

a bit mad from nihilism
and ancient furies
preferred his own
mystery stories,
needed glasses
chose a pince-nez
forgot to shave
yet had a mop
grew a mustache
then muttonchops
and a fez
once discovered
by a director to be cast
in a musical play
with rare reviews
and told to appear brave
yet refused to be
anyone's stage slave
according to the Daily News

chose not to volunteer
for the Great war,
took his own journey
without a Forbes-Burney
became a club reporter
from London and Mecca
where he had a son
who was quite a masher
named after Glubb Pasha
who moved to America
in New York's Tribeca
and created a misunderstood
personal memoir
of his father in Hollywood.