Don’t want the fame or the fortune,
just want to die great.
Don’t want to make it rain,
Don’t want you to remember my name,
just want to meet my fate.
Don’t want shelter from poverty,
Don’t want to be a celebrity,
Don’t want the press to acknowledge me,
just want my tale to run late.
Don’t want reality TV shows,
Tattoos of me or a cast of my nose,
A Benz or a Mansion, a status that grows,
A mountain of gold or a name like “The Rose,”
I want a straightforward checkmate.
Don’t want some books to be written of me,
and well, if they do, they had better not mention me,
Don’t want a Mini-me,
Please never shout for me,
Don’t want some friends only friends with the monied-me,
Just tell my anonymous story late:
A man once journeyed from grave to gate…
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For newcomers — a note on 50 @ 25:
Once upon a time, I read that the perfect age for writing quality poetry is twenty-three. Apparently most of T.S. Elliot’s stuff came out then, the rest of his work being supposedly non-poetic. This resulted in 46 poems written at 23.
These poems came out exponentially faster and faster before my 24th birthday on April 30th – and I had to write in genres spanning from epic ballads to limericks to get 46 in on time. I guess that means, for better or worse, that’s the best poetry I’ll ever write. Sad day.
Who was I kidding?
Milton was blind and old—oooooold—when he publishedParadise Regained. Emily Dickenson was dead when her stuff came out. My favorite stuff from T.S. Elliot came out after his conversion. So yeah, old age is good for poetry too. Look at Burns and Berry.
(Side note: the name “Berry Burns” sounds like a shady car salesman).
Will I keep up this twice-my-age regimen every few years? Who knows, but this year, here’s to 50 poems at 25 to be written exponentially faster until I turn 26 on April Thirtyish. I do it this the second time around as a way to say: “Here’s to living life well before it’s too late.”
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