But a presence you’ll lack, they said,
Escape this new world, you cannot.
You cannot deny what’s ahead,
Or deign to change the plot.
Under pretense, vigor, and show,
Reinvent who you were for clout.
Accept we know what you don’t know,
Until you come about.
Trust that this process, all this grind,
Helps more than what you wrote,
Ensuring you will come to mind,
Never mind the meaning you note.
Terrible it must be, they say,
If your writing is never read,
Canceled before your chance to play,
Salting what’s in your head.
Empty, though, this fool’s chase for praise,
Letting parlor tricks waste my days,
For if the words are never heard, then truth will be what pays.
— ❧ —
Poetry Inspired by the Wrong Advice
This acrostic poem came to me after reading a heap of disingenuous advice online about how to present your work as an author. So much of what’s getting put out there is about promoting quantity over quality. Chasing dollars over relationships. It made me want to say, “hold the phone.”
If you’d like to read more poetry like this, please check out In Verse.