“Put the pen down before you hurt yourself.”

“Hey! I didn’t see you there. Stopped by for coffee?”

“It’s Starbucks. Why else would I be here?”

“They sell CD’s.”

“I’m not in the market for plebian music.”

“Snob.”

“Whatever. Let the masses have their Celine Dion with their soy lattes. What the fuck do I know?”

“Sit down.”

“Will you stop scribbling in that notebook if I do?”

“Maybe.”

“Why do you do that? You don’t find it a tad pretentious?”

“In L.A.? In San Francisco, yes. You go to a bar or a coffee shop up there and every other person is leaning over a notebook or a pad of paper, throwing out bits of poetry that no one’s going to read –”

“Unless they put it on their blog. God, I hate blogs. Even more, I hate the person who concocted the word. Blog. Bleh.”

“It’s short for ‘weblog’.”

“Do I look like I only got access to the internet last Tuesday? I know that, Poetry Boy.”

“Stop.”

“Why? It’s funny. Do you share your poetry with the barristas? That’s another word I hate, by the way.”

“I don’t share my poems with anybody.”

“Then why do you do it? Unless you’re showing off.”

“Showing off?”

“Sure. Sitting in the window seat at Starbucks hour after hour, agonizing over a poem in your little notebook, brow furrowed, pen wrenched between your fingers. It’s such a pretentious display. Please tell me it gets you laid. I mean, that has to be the point.”

“There is no point.”

“Ah-ha! That’s precisely what I’m saying.”

“Look, in L.A. no one sits around writing poetry. That’s the thing I was trying to say a second ago. Here, people just think I’m making a grocery list or notes for a screenplay.”

“Like everyone else.”

“Yes, like everyone else.”

“Why do you want to be like everyone else?”

“I’m not. I’m writing poetry. For myself.”

“And that makes you special? How do you know that guy sitting over there isn’t writing poetry?”

“He could be. But it’s more likely he’s making a mental inventory of his fridge or writing notes for a pitch at Disney tomorrow. It’s L.A., the odds go in that direction.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmmm. Who’s the snob now?”

“Knock it off.”

“You want to know what I think?”

“Can I stop you?”

“No, you cannot. I think if you spent three-quarters of the time that you give to writing poetry — material that, by your own admission, is for no one’s eyes but your own — if you took that time and wrote something constructive like, say, a screenplay –”

“I don’t want to write a screenplay. No desire whatsoever.”

“No, you’d rather write words that are not meant to be read. Maybe you should write in invisible ink.”

“Maybe I should drive my car off Mulholland Drive, too.”

“What? And have the world lose one of it’s most productive poets? Perish the thought. Want another coffee?”