By their vanity they are all overthrown.
Nothing makes you feel old
like being in a room full of old people,
a 19th century room full of white hair and books.
Clever women, a little too young for you,
their whole being rolled into sympathetic looks.
I don’t want to have anything in common with these people.
I refuse to think of myself as old.
I cannot do this. I shrink. I fold.
Even world famous authors are not as great as they think they are.
Imagine the vanity of some local star
with shelved books on their sickness and barn yard strife.
Please remove me from all this. I won’t mingle.
To be a local author, it’s necessary to mingle.
I don’t have a necessary life.
I would rather commit suicide.
If I got up there and read my insane, obscene, jingle,
strangers would stand at odd angles by my side.
Literature as kindly life. Just thinking of the anticlimactic
atmosphere of small readings fills me with panic.
What will the young adult fiction women think of me?
Harry Potter imaginations are easily obtained.
I prefer the poetry of my semi-famous friend,
totally and completely insane.
What am I doing here at the Salem Athenaeum?
Dry, introductory, remarks by the local prof.
Thank God there’s this small room devoted to Frank L. Baum.
I must escape this old, regal, lady and her cough.
You know the moral of this poem, don’t you?
Old local authors are children, by their vanity overthrown.
But the vanity which ruins me is my own.