Celebrity Dreamscapes
by Odin Roark

Washington
Wall Street
Hollywood
Nashville

Where regurgitation overflows
And Barmecidal bait boxes
Morph their delights by the hour

All the while

Gluttony's promised feast
Ignorant of cyclic famine
Awaits the pernicious fate-agent
Scouting to burrow like a weevil
The new crop of innocence

Trusting destiny to the winds of chance
Confident redolent success smells
French perfume
Garlic enhanced delicacies
Fresh tanned leather of opulent travel
Are theirs to have

How fragrant the illusory air becomes
The temperature of anticipated fortune's shift
Where once a round-shouldered indigent freshman pounded doors
Now seemingly triumphant
Unknowingly erect as a naked rose stem
With yesterday's portent of rich reward
Rapidly sheds its petals
Mulch for tomorrow's next planting

How fleeting the enigmatic feast of notoriety
Time's incumbent qualification
For re-introducing innate principals
Cautioning today's attention
Is but a requisite for tomorrow's elusive truth

Yet

Fearful of fruitless coming years
Too few embrace cognizance over
Fading Klieg lights Party snubs
Absent red carpet entrances
A maître d's forgetfulness

Yes

The harvesting of one's experience
Might suffer drought and winds
Scattering past efforts
To but memories of dust
Rather than priceless benchmarks
To reveal the authentic self

Yes

Such a disposition may well make "Being" difficult and distant
Where the "take a number and be seated" readout at DMV
May well become a feared test
Where waiting
Becomes a ticking-off-process
Asking if one can hold onto the simpler distant past
Those surprising coming-of-age sensations
The first time rewards of libations' survival
The generous thank you once felt by the first kiss
And yes...
One's elation upon receiving that first driver's license

We think
We review
We ponder "what price" aspiration

Ambition
So often blind to trickery
Frequently stumbles upon start marks
Not meant to be
Distant finishing lines
Not meant to be reached

Still

One can take a number
And eventually hear one's name called
To be who you are...

Or not