30 poems in 30 days: 17

Tonight I'm slated to drive to Appleton and announce the winners of a local poetry contest that I judged.  As part of the hoopla, I am to read 2 or so of my own poems, talk for about 5 minutes about the process of writing poetry, and then announce the winners.

I woke up feeling a horrible thick syrupy lassitude, a general reluctance to go anywhere out of my home zone of Green Bay and De Pere. Why can't I enjoy a comfortable obscurity?  I thought.

So that will be (something like) my first line today.

Also, I just got a message from the IT powers here at the College that Google is having global difficulties.  If I lose this, so be it.

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Now That I've Perhaps Exceeded the Middle of My Life

Now that I've perhaps exceeded the middle of my life, I want to enjoy
     a comfortable obscurity.
Dreams of fortune and fame are long behind me.  I'm fairly sure
     no bestseller lurks in my saggy brain.  The novels inside me
lack endings.  And I don't want to serve as an aging poetry rock star,
     followed down the streets by my hipster entourage, retro chic,
called to the podium at smoky NYC bars to rant into the microphone
     about the good old days in the Village -- schizophrenic sex
and psychedelic cocktails, mental orgies at all the famous Universities --
     a jazzy combo weaving single malt Scotch into my familiar
complaints.  I don't want young poets to chase me home in the hopes
     that my success will rub off on them, like my shabby gray hair,
like my alcoholic excess.

I don't want an agent, I don't want to go on international tours,
     I don't want to sit for hours at a book-signing, flashbulbs popping,
hand cramping.  God forbid I should be reviewed in the New York Times,
     or quoted ad nauseam,  "Laureate" attached to my title.
I don't want to my rumpled mug in People magazine,
     standing next to David Bowie or Elvis Costello, my newest
best friends.

     I don't even want to grade this latest batch of papers.
    
In fact, I'm pleased that when I get out of my car at the supermarket,
    no one knows my name, that frowning people in winter coats
barely glance up from their lists to acknowledge my presence.
    There's something reassuring in their hurried indifference, in
my ability to slip through their quotidian world virtually
     unnoticed. They have no idea what I do for a living, that I
should be capturing the divine essence in this Wednesday morning and
     publishing it in a poem that maybe 15 friends will read,
instead of contemplating a cup of coffee and a donut.