I a nobody
On the literary scene
Watched them as they craft
Saw the adoration
As with the who is who
They laughed
Poetry & stories poured from their fingertips like manna
To be devoured by critics, judges and fans
I a nobody watched from afar
Parchment white mocking my efforts
Ink on my fingers, staining my shirt
Oh! How it hurts
I am nothing
Outsider
Interloper
Party crasher
Hand in the cookie jar
No letters of distinction trail my name
No PH or D
A Master of none
Professor of thoughts but never of poetry
I sit invisible
In the presence of literary Gods
Hear them laugh as they full their glasses with champagne and praise
Drinking each other up until they were so big
They could barely fit the room
I am squeeze into the wall
My papers fall
White and jarring
Creativity is not enough
In this heady game
No professor tempers my reckless abandon
With commas and semi colons
No one to slash at my prose until it is decent
Enough to be shown in company
I a plebeian in aristocratic company
Willing to be seen
But fearing the scorn in their eyes
Mirrored by my own
No pedigree in this accolades race
My efforts swept to the side
For more familiar, familia names
And twist of word
In the garden of same
Different is death
Winners of cups of gold
Do not themselves concern
With the wants of the mule
No one wants to ride
I a nobody in this literary world
No poems to slam
Only doors
And hands on walls
As I bawl
My mind a busy street
My page an empty alleyway
The gleam of awards illuminates their skin
Causing my eyes to water
Or perhaps it was the knowledge I could never enter they inner circle
That did so.
