Wilyem Clark
08-14-2016, 01:26 PM
The deepest mystery to me
Is how these men of letters
Achieve their goals, collect their medals,
As if predestined to be best-peddlers,
Prophets of the top ten lists,
Our age's chosen vital voices
For future doorstop anthologies.
As for me: one sale a year
Is source of pride enough;
Any more would ruin me,
Spoil my humble nature pie,
Make the old stone well run dry.
My swamp will drain some day, I'm sure,
But through the process of sedimentation,
And not the result of publicity
Sump-pumping it down to caky clay.
Anonymity is a blessing
When you wish to hear yourself;
Fame intoxicates and rumbles,
Raises competing soliloquies,
Dials up the volume on stormy static
Until your inner oracle
Drowns in a sea of inanity.
Is how these men of letters
Achieve their goals, collect their medals,
As if predestined to be best-peddlers,
Prophets of the top ten lists,
Our age's chosen vital voices
For future doorstop anthologies.
As for me: one sale a year
Is source of pride enough;
Any more would ruin me,
Spoil my humble nature pie,
Make the old stone well run dry.
My swamp will drain some day, I'm sure,
But through the process of sedimentation,
And not the result of publicity
Sump-pumping it down to caky clay.
Anonymity is a blessing
When you wish to hear yourself;
Fame intoxicates and rumbles,
Raises competing soliloquies,
Dials up the volume on stormy static
Until your inner oracle
Drowns in a sea of inanity.