They're sucking up to their editors.

The blond beauty with clenched face

Is closing on the TV critic.

An almost never novelist is saying,

As the old joke has it, Fantastic!

Instead of bullshit.  Myself?

The poetry editor I came here to flatter

Didn't show, leaving me with nothing to do.

So I relax by the window, moderately drunk,

Wondering about our little enclave

Of recent expats and never-beens.

The hostess keeps the bubbly flowing.

Everyone is putting in a yes.

Literature is a dirty business.

                                                 Tokyo, 1989