in an impossibility of
insomniac disbelief
the thoughts rage
as they tend to do
stirred up
as the reality of
the situation
lands belly up
in front of
my very own
deceiving eyes
no one respects
a doddering fool
that plies
a dead trade
nor wish to speak with
an insignificant poet
placed between
those
with an actual
future

the tortoise
enjoys the silence of
his shell
the poet
thrives within
his hell while
the writers
promote from within
their own
the fool
is perched
upon his throne
of briars topped
with innocuous
anonymity

in the face of
the best
he has done
he is undone
by the face
he wears
left in the negative of
fiscal mental physical
emptiness
bereft of even
a casual spark of interest
as his face
is scraped across
the concrete on repeat
in the silence
no chance of flame
to ignite
a flailing career

and if you ask him
in one of those
rare moments
where the truth
is a barb wire mesh
pulling the skin
tightly against the bone
where the fabled
sight of success
is an ever shifting line
pulling farther away
a dollar on string
in the hands of
an industry
that will only ever
see him
as a joke.