To be a midlist author, surrounded by literary bad boys,

Intending nothing but skipping prominent alleys

In favor of fiduciary parking lots, magicing up

Works whose chief merits reign illusionary, phantasmal,

While making profiteers’ eyes roll ’round their sockets.

So many dun-colored basketballs go bouncing among odorous

Fame hounds until hoops get filled, goals ratcheted.

These electronic days, no one pays stylish secretaries to appear

All carefully arranged hair, tailored, fashionable outfits

Bearing brimming letter files plus news from project engineers.

Rather, we creative sorts resort to serving known financial demons

By means of cold calls, unsolicited submission, even fan fiction,

Albeit also slowly learning which small presses bloom and pop like

Rainy day lupines, cactus flowers, beloperones.

Contemporary writing’s no storage bin for misplaced visions,

Star-gazed hoodlums, polite dreamers. Unlike old eras, when word

Play was good commerce, modern buying, selling, even trading

Prose, mischief, poetics makes stale bread. Texts seem mere more choils,

Hapless salutations, fitted out to suit e-zines, blogs, quick copy.

Spun for someone else’s pet display of bother, angst, ill-discerned viscera,

Becoming budgie liner unless recognized, by awards or money.

Hitherto, jeremiads fade to black, their magnetic hoards dust before

Programmers realize transference possibilities for rhetorical basalt.

Great portions of  digital salutations get reduced to elluvium, hurrriedly.

So, fishing pole, quill pen, other anachronisms packed I prefer

My name among scree, my pages tucked between ads, not URLs,

My professional gaeses fulfilled by dint of ink, paper, rock.

I’ll color the wind, fleetingly, willingly, for handfuls of ready readers.