The Ballad of a Poet

by Joseph Brown

"I've seen it before, it's hardly worth my

time"

Said the man with the cane and college

degree

"The meter is common, and what of the

rhyme?"

"It's predictable from what I can see"

The poet hung his head, his cheeks

aflame

And asked for the distinguished man's

pardon They both knew there was a price to

fame

An unforgiving industry to star in

Alone he walks with his work in his hand

The other tucked away in his pocket

His life hardly like the one he had

planned

His free arm hangs limp in its socket

A vicious fire burns within his chest

Over the brim of his heart does it flow

It swells and it scorches the walls of his

breast

A pain only the lonely could know

Lost in his mind and homeless at heart

He fumbles with the paper and pen

What good have they ever brought from

the start?

What point is there to it all, then?

Into the night does his soliloquy drift

'Till his tears render him unable

Unable to live with the pain of his gift

His broken heart and his head hit the

table

The following morning they found him

there

His life's work saturated with tears

Send for the digger a grave to prepare

Another victim of desperate years

Always a man of humble sensation

‘Till a curator published his name

His curious death gave birth to salvation

His tragedy ended in fame

What is a man aside from his rapport

And his work his counterpart?

After all, a gallery is nothing more

Than an exhibition of an artist’s heart

Daylight leaks through the crack in the

wall

And lures our poet from his dream

It appears he survived the cruel nightfall

Reality seldom as it seems

Without so much as a morning yawn

He settled the painful debate

Inspired by the night’s phenomenon

His experience to animate

Left alone with his words and his life

He determined that’s all he’d be needing

Destined to wander midst sorrow and

strife

“My heart is broken;” he wrote, “but it’s

beating”