On Fame, On Fame Continued, and On Fame Concluded (My 3 Conditions Poem the Exercise in Format)

Omar Elkoton
Professor Mounzer
Creative Writing
16 July 2009
Note: This is essential one big poem split into three parts. So, I suggest reading it through without stopping before you place comments that way there’s more continuity.

On Fame
He can hear the crowd brimming with excitement
The torrent of their excitement, their love. Imbues him with
The cloak of a God.

He is their hero.
And he knows it.
Should he tell them?

That the sheer weight of this image terrifies him.
He’s not Superman, That’s just his secret identity.
In reality. He’s just Clark Kent with an inferiority complex.

He can’t tell them that.

On Fame Continued

He can’t admit to being human.
That in the dark corners of his heart.
His fears and desires burn in a single flame of insecurity.

He can’t even admit this to himself.
If he did the flame would evaporate. Because
The image is padding so that he may wear the giant’s robe. Which

Exacerbate his insecurities. Because
He must be the giant. He must bring the stars down to the people
He must be their Prometheus. He must be the caretaker of their image of him.

Or, he will have to surrender his Cloak of Invincibility, and be swallowed by Obscurity.

On Fame Concluded
He can’t be smothered by Obscurity. Not now. Not again.

Become just an imprint of a person.
Or worse, inhabit that limbo of the memory. Forever verging on recognition
chocking on his dreams.

All his accomplishments uprooted and stuffed into a Where Are They Now? Segment on E TV. His work reduced to quips on the “Tonight Show”.
No, he can’t face that. He can’t be erased.

What about them? They idolize him.
Three quarters of him feels like a gambler squandering their love, their belief in him. What should he tell them?