The Price of Fame - Poem by Ivan Donn Carswell

Do I really love you? So let me guess, you’ll think I’m easy prey
if I say, okay I do – but it wont get in the way of my impending fame;
I will be famous, be assured of that, and please to keep it hidden in
your fancy beggar’s hat. Be it fame or notoriety, I’ll need to parley that,
but my dream of space in bigger things will not be done by ruse
or wily subterfuge but earned by sterling deeds I deem to be my own.
I don’t know how I’ll do it yet, I know it will be done and in the wash
I’ll stand the test and shine beside the very best; while now I rank
amongst the rest I can surely rise with you to guide me.
Do I really love you? Yes, for sure, a love as pure as polished snow,
as sweet as birdsong in the morning, as neat as furrowed rows
that stretch across the fields until tomorrow, and when they recognise
my name and cry their adulation I will wear your smile upon my lips
and avidly acclaim whose hand it was that lead me to my eminence.
You look askance, I know that troubled glance, it says
you see the fame I seek as refuse rotting on the beach, a pile
of putrid vows and vapid lies, and you chastise yourself;
it’s my demise my dear, I’ll die a pauper anyway if I don’t play the game.
You know it is the price of fame.
© I.D. Carswell