Greatness-by-Association

How brazen the walls extend their girth,

their paintings like gasps of breath

from creation’s exhaustion treading water,

waiting for the aha of eyesreaching

to save spent energy from drowning.

From gallery to gallery,

footsteps pause while

optics of experience peer

critically at museum treasures

for some kind of identity.

Numerous political obligations,

and ever-increasing hacks,

those of trend-obsessed notoriety

vying for that extra exposure,

that longed for stare of approval,

if only for a surreptitious shoot-and-run

smart phone snapshot,

a selfie of pseudo intelligence,

grifters hopefully garnering likes and viral-numbers.

Might excellence be an endangered quality

as greatness-by-association upstages the real?