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This writing was accepted for publication in the 84 page perfect-bound issue... Down in the Dirt magazine (v093) (the April 2011 Issue) You can also order this 5.5" x 8.5" issue as an ISSN# paperback book:						This writing also appears in this 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback “Wake Up and Smell the Flowers” Order this 6" x 9" ISBN# book: (also available through amazon.com)

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Daffodil’s

Dion Beary

    “My client will now be taking a few questions. Keep them short. She’s only got fifteen minutes. Please, no pictures. She says press conferences are as pointless as staring into the sky and that all those flashing lights make her feel as if the stars are exploding one by one. Isn’t that amazing people? She’s made you into a metaphor! Count yourselves lucky.”
    Daffodil’s agent had made the speech several times before. It was also his job to have security remove anyone who broke those very simple rules. Daffodil should not be agitated. She was his livelihood, and he loved her for that reason. The fee for his love was 5% of everything Daffodil made.
    When the hands flew up, he selected a thin older woman with a face that looked as if it was composed of broken parts of other faces.
    “And what is your name?” Daffodil’s agent asked?
    “I’m Mrs. Huffington,” she replied.
    “And what is your question for Daffodil?”
    “What is your motivation for writing such magnificent poetry?”
    Daffodil answered, speaking for the first time during the press conference. “I like to sit in my garden and tend to the plants that grow there. But sometimes it gets too hot or it rains. So, I write a poem instead. Next question.”
    Daffodil’s agent called on a chubby man who may or may not have been a pig in a man suit. “And what’s your name?”
    “I’m Mr. Beck,” he replied. “Daffodil, many famous poets of the past have commented on what exactly it means to be a poet. Where do you weigh in on this?”
    “I consider myself more of a comedian than a poet, actually,” she said. “Who’s next?”
    Daffodil’s agent selected an attractive man who was too young for his white hair, but too old for his shiny blue eyes.
    “What’s your name?” Daffodil’s agent asked.
    “I’m Mr. Cooper,” he replied.
    “And your question?”
    “Do you find writing poetry to be a meticulous, difficult, intricate process?”
    Daffodil made a face as if she was thinking about the question, but that was just to keep appearances up. She was quite the actor. “Each one of my poems takes exactly twenty-eight seconds to construct in my mind. As soon as I’m done, I forget it. It sometimes takes me weeks to remember it, and by then, it’s typically a different poem than it was before. Then, I write it down.” The press recorded every word of this bullshit. Coming up with ridiculous statements about her poetry was becoming one of the few things that gave Daffodil any joy. Someone once compared fame to a monster. Daffodil couldn’t readily remember who that was, probably Plato, but she agreed with them full heartedly. This monster starting to swallow her.
    Looking out into the pit of faces all there to question her every motive, she suddenly felt faint. There was too much attention, too many eyes. The color fled from her face, and she became pale. Her throat felt scratchy and tight, which made her cough, and she became pink. Her stomach began to spin, and she became green. The press saw this brilliant rainbow and anxiously began snapping pictures. The clicks and pops and flashes made her dizzy. Her world became brighter and brighter until it was all as white as blank paper. She fainted and collapsed on the ground.
    “That’s it!” her agent yelled. “You have all broken the rules. This press conference is over. Security! Get everyone out of here.” As the room emptied out noisily, Daffodil’s agent stood above her shaking his head. He sighed.
    “Can we just get through one press conference without you fainting?” He leaned down and picked up her limp body, tossing her over his shoulder. “You’ve got a reading tonight in Denver.”
    She groggily mumbled something.

***

    Daffodil Lansley knew poetry was a joke. This gave her a leg up on her contemporaries. At the age of sixteen while discussing Walt Whitman’s “O Captain! My Captain” in her English class, her note-taking hand seemed to briefly take on a life of its own, so instead of writing background information about Whitman’s admiration of Abraham Lincoln, she wrote this phrase: “This is all a bit silly, isn’t it?”
    Once she realized this, poetry came to her with ease. She’d write the most ridiculous things she could think of: poems consisting of nothing but punctuation, poems that were actually just doodles of people she saw on the bus, poems that were just the word “poem” over and over again. She showed the poems to her friends and teachers and laughed to herself whenever they complimented her on how great they were. The laughs really started rolling in when she submitted a few of the poems to a publisher one night. When he emailed her back, begging to publish anything and everything she had, Daffodil laughed harder than she would ever laugh again.
    Four years later, she published a collection of poetry called Masturbation. It contained twenty poems, some as short as one word long (one such word being “applesauce”) and some exceeding 70,000 words in length. Daffodil figured that she could make a little bit of a money off the thing, at least enough to fund her gardening, which was starting to get a little expensive to keep up, because sometimes things get out of hand, and what starts out as simple becomes too much for one person to handle. Daffodil was still young, and she didn’t know this yet.

***

    Critics were calling her the savior of the poetic form. They praised her ability to mix experimentation with accessibility and used just about every nonsensical adjective at their disposal to describe the collection. She was featured on every popular talk show and put on the cover of every popular magazine. After a reading of one of her poems in the drought stricken city of Nakuru, Kenya, the entire Great Rift Valley was bathed in rain for ten straight days. Several doctors, moved to action by the brilliance of her poetry, pulled an all-nighter at an IHOP in Idaho Falls and were able to come up with several possible cures for leukemia. On an episode of The Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan read a few excerpts from Daffodil’s collection to an unruly cocker spaniel. The dog’s behavior from that point on was exemplary.
    But her most striking success was with high school students. All around the world, teenagers could be found with copies of the collection, posting excerpts from it as their Facebook status, and spontaneously reciting lines from it whenever appropriate. Many of them were paying attention to poetry for the first time, and they eagerly sought out more poets to sate their new taste. Daffodil had single-handedly popularized poetry amongst the Twitter generation. There was, of course, the little problem of her fainting occasionally during interviews and press conferences, but why take her off the road when she was only becoming more and more successful? her agent reasoned. He said to her one night in a hotel room in Dallas, “You’re on fire, Daffodil.”
    “I do feel like I’m burning down,” she replied.
    “Oh, you and your metaphors,” he said. “Such a poet. Now get some sleep. You’ve got Larry King tomorrow.”
    “This isn’t funny anymore,” she said to him. Laying herself down on the bed, she allowed exhaustion to get the best of her and she fell asleep. As soon as her breathing was slow and rhythmic, her agent began clipping her hair. Locks of Daffodil’s brown hair were going for $50 on Amazon, and since hair was made in her body, he figured he was entitled to at least 5% of it.

***

    It was a movement, and every movement needs its pivotal moments, something for the history books, something to prove that whatever was happening actually happened. One night, four kids got together and decided to provide the movement with just that sort of moment.
     The plan was to stage a poetry festival. They’d invite popular poets from all over the world to read entire collections on five different stages set up on a farm somewhere in the Midwest. They hadn’t settled on a specific farm, although they knew it probably wouldn’t be difficult to find one once they got out there. They decided they would hold poetry workshops, slam poetry sessions, poetry contests, put up giant cardboard cutouts of famous poets, and most importantly, they could charge people $50 a ticket and sell them overpriced food, water, and t-shirts with ironic phrases on them (their favorite being one with a picture of Emily Dickinson running around with this phrase written under it: “I’d love to — stay and talk — but I’ve got — to dash!”). But they knew if they were to have any hope of getting lots of people to buy tickets to their stupid festival, they’d need Daffodil Lansley as the headliner. She was the one responsible for this movement, the focal point of her entire genre. Without her, no one would give a shit. They decided to call it The Poetry Extravaganza featuring Daffodil Lansley.
    The kids went to Daffodil’s front door and buzzed the buzzer. There were four of them, two boys and two girls, and they’d all dolled themselves up just a little bit. Business casual, the capitalists would call it. The girls were in pretty Sunday dresses covered in flowers, while the boys wore striped polos and khaki pants. Hair combed, fingernails cleaned, too much perfume and body spray, and these were the poetry enthusiasts, the free spirits.
    They sipped tea in Daffodil’s living room while explaining their project to her.
    “We can define our generation here and now,” one of the boys said, the skinnier one.
    “And we’d make a lot of money,” the larger boy chimed in. “We would, of course, be willing to pay you a substantial amount.”
    “We know that genius isn’t free,” said the round girl.
    “And neither is poetry,” said the girl shaped like a pear.
    Daffodil listened in only mild interest. She’d been growing more and more concerned with poetry-as-fad and the role she played in the this new trending topic. Poetry was just a joke, and she knew this, but these kids believed in it, couldn’t see past the smoke and mirrors of it all. And there were thousands, if not millions, more like them. It all made her a little paranoid and uneasy.
    Finally, the kids put down their teacups and put on their adorable little serious faces.
    “We need you to be our headliner,” the large boy said, “or our event, this movement, won’t be successful.”
    That word, “successful,” numbed Daffodil for a moment and she breathed deeply. She remembered how her teachers used to talk about poetry, how they said it had no rules, and there were so many different poets and poems and styles, and that chaos has made her feel free. But that was before she discovered poetry was just one big joke.
    She realized then that she’d become a troll.
    “No,” she said, looking the kids straight into their adorable little serious faces. “I can’t do this anymore. I won’t headline your festival. I can’t be your figure head. I’m retiring from poetry.”
    Imagine Jesus Christ telling you he was an atheist, and that’s what those four kids were feeling at that moment; they knew they’d make less money.
    The kids turned their adorable little serious faces up to maximum adorable seriousness.
    “Daffodil, I don’t think you understand,” said the girl whose body shape was similar to that of a pear. “Don’t you realize how many critics would fall to the ground worshipping at your feet if you performed? The pictures from this event will line history books. Our movement and our generation will finally have something to call our own.”
    “Plus,” the short boy said, “we already ordered over five hundred of those Emily Dickinson t-shirts.”
    But Daffodil was steadfast. She’d seen a vision of herself as Chaucer’s Friar, selling false relics to the ignorant believers.
    She shifted restlessly in her seat. “I think it’s time you left,” she said to them.
    “But—”
    “I’m sorry. The smell of Axe is giving me a headache.”
    The two boys frowned a little at each other and then stood to leave, the girls following quickly behind. Alone again, she sat back in her living room and started to finish her tea. She looked forward to a day when she’d be able to sit on furniture in a living room in a house and drink tea from a cup without having to exploit people for it all. Tomorrow, she decided, she’d fire her agent and tell her publisher that Daffodil had died and been revived, had sinned, repented, and would, no doubt, be forgiven. Amen.

***

    “Retire? You can’t retire,” Daffodil’s agent said the next morning. The two were walking through Daffodil’s garden.
    “Well, I am. No more poetry. No more passing out at press conferences. From now on, I just want to be left alone,” she said. She carried a grass-woven basket on her arm and periodically stopped to bend over and pick a ripe strawberry.
    “Is this a metaphor? Are you being symbolic?”
    She stopped and turned to him. “Don’t you get it? It’s all a joke.”
    “Dramatic irony, you mean?”
    “What the hell are you talking about?” Daffodil bent over and picked up a handful of dirt. “Do you see this? It’s dirt. That’s all it is. And these strawberries are strawberries and my grass-woven basket is a grass-woven basket. It’s ridiculous to believe anything else.”
    Daffodil began walking again, deeper into the garden. Her agent scratched his head, deciding the scene was simply too dense for him to decode.

***

    When Daffodil’s retirement became public news, the outpouring of the over-the-top silliness was tremendous. People actually cried. CNN dedicated an entire day of coverage to the developing situation. Spaceships and planets fell out of the sky causing mass chaos and destruction. But Daffodil ignored it all. For the first time in four years she had no qualms at all about the life she was living. She’d taken a pilgrimage of the mind during those first few days out of the spotlight. The peace she found there was safe and warm and red and orange. So, while out gardening one warm afternoon, when the four kids came around her backyard, she was a little more than apprehensive. That paranoia eased its way under and up the back of her sundress.
    The kids weren’t dressed as nicely as before. They wore their khaki cargo shorts and screen printed t-shirts and tight fitting jeans and halter tops. Casual, the capitalists would call it. They had changed the plans for the festival. The whole thing would be dedicated to her and her imminent retirement. And they would charge people $80 a ticket and sell them cookies with tiny haikus written on them and Allen Ginsberg wigs and funnel cakes. It would now be called Daffodil’s Retirement Party and Poetry Extravaganza featuring Some Other Poets Too.
    They explained all this excitedly. “And, of course,” the round girl said, finishing up the speech, “we’d be willing to pay you a substantial amount of money.”
    Had they not heard her before, she wondered? She stood up, clutching her tiny gardening shovel much tighter than she’d ever held a pen back in her days of poetic dominance (you know, like, last week). “Children,” she said, “I have found a peace amidst myself that I never found in poetry. I’m not going back to that life.” She wanted to tell them that poetry was just a joke, but she felt as if she’d be snatching blankets away from infants. After all, it was her fault they believed in poetry so much. She’d built her wealth and fame on kids just like these, and seeing how dedicated and passionate they seemed about poetry made her feel like a liar again. So, she explained to them once more, with words that were fire ants, that she would never again place herself into the poetry world. The kids’ ears burned and turned red and swelled to look like cauliflower.
    Daffodil threw down her shovel and stormed inside as the kids watched on in silence. They just didn’t understand why the world’s greatest living artist would give up on everything for a life of normalcy, of sitting in the dirt in a garden. So, the kids destroyed the garden, pulled up all the daisies and carrots and strawberries and tomatoes and tulips and cabbage and daffodils. It took them almost an hour, and when they were done they salted the Earth so nothing would ever grow there again.

***

    Years passed and poetry remained incredibly popular, mostly thanks to an additional collection of Daffodil’s poetry entitled Fetish, which had been locked up in the painfully slow publishing process, finally getting released. Daffodil’s fame was now replaced by a mythic legacy. She had completely withdrawn from public life. The only thing more intriguing than a superstar is a reclusive superstar.
    Those four kids knew this, so they got together and rethought their plan. After forty days and forty nights of wandering in the desert of pontification, they finally concluded that the festival would now have to be Daffodil Lansley’s return concert. The whole thing would be dedicated to Daffodil’s triumphant return to the poetry landscape and perhaps it could coincide with the publishing of a new volume of poetry. They could charge people $250 a ticket and raffle off a Sylvia Plath Brand© Self-Cleaning Oven and serve all kinds of flavors of ice cream. It would now be called Daffodil’s Comeback Poetry Extravaganza featuring Promiscuous Sex.
    So, again, they came to Daffodil’s door. They were stripped down to their underwear. The boys were in nothing but silk boxers, and the girls were in matching bras and panties, expensive ones from Victoria’s Secret. Sexy, the capitalists would call it.
    When no one answered the door, they became concerned and began yelling through the door for Daffodil to come out and talk with them. They heard her voice come from inside, so quiet that the wind almost took it away before they could grab it.
    “Go away and, please, never come back,” she said. “On my own, I have blazed more brightly than I ever could in the sunlight. I’ve found love in myself, the only place where it truly exists.” That right there is the joke of poetry, but she didn’t tell them that. The guilt of her exploitation was still too painful. On the occasions when she’d allow herself to think about it too much, it felt as if a van was rolling over her chest.
    Speaking of vans, the kids then drove one through Daffodil’s front door. They needed to talk to her about the festival and none of them knew how to pick a lock, so it seemed like the most obvious solution. The wood splintered as beautifully as wood splintering after being hit by a van.
    The two boys, who had driven the van through the door, hopped out the sides and, with the girls in tow, entered Daffodil’s house. The floors were a maze of potted plants. Daffodils grew tall in them, tall enough to look the kids straight in the eyes. It was an indoor daffodil forest. The kids probed the moment for a symbol, a conceit, a meaning, but instead heard the pained moans of Daffodil. She was curled up in a corner, blood trickling from her mouth like a newborn’s drool. There were tiny mountains of broken wood all around her. Something about driving a van through her front door was, apparently, dangerous to her health.
    The kids watched her dying, half in ignorance and half in ignorance. Yes, completely in ignorance. They began to slowly take off their clothes until they were nothing more than bare chests, breasts, stomachs, dicks, thighs. Pornography, the capitalists would call it. Daffodil looked up at them, clutching her stomach, laying on a bed of splinters.
    “Don’t you get it?” she said, her voice cracking and shaking. “Why don’t you get it?”
    She was pleading with them to understand, but her universe was becoming dim and dull and dusty.
    And then it died. Daffodil slumped down completely onto the floor, her body a stone, her soul a statue. The daffodils that created a forest in her home wilted, turned to grey, and disintegrated into dust. The kids watched all this and decided they were OK with it. Poetry may be a joke, but money is still real, they reasoned. Daffodil’s death was so trite, such a weak moment in her otherwise flawless career. The kids reasoned that they’d do a favor to her legacy by never mentioning it, and made a point of ignoring it whenever Daffodil was brought up in conversation amongst them. Every artist gets one free pass.

***

    The poetry festival was held in honor of her memory. They charged people $700 a ticket and sold bumper stickers that read, “Daffodil Has My Back” And they sold Emily Dickinson t-shirts and cookies with haikus written on them and Allen Ginsberg wigs and a Sylvia Plath Brand© Self-Cleaning Oven and funnel cake. It was quite difficult to pull off, but the kids had help from a man who said he used to be Daffodil’s agent. They called the festival Daffodil’s. Hundreds of thousands of people attended, and all of them came completely naked, sweating and drooling and pissing on the farm ground below them. This was an orgy.
    Years before, a young girl sat in her English class, listening to a lecture on Walt Whitman and, barely thinking, jotted down this note: “This is all a bit silly, isn’t it?”

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