— Carol Connolly

I am a full-time fraud,
passing as a poet.
It's filthy work. But
someone has to do it.
Stilted syllables
line my walls,
confusion
crowds my room
with maggoty mounds
of mediocre metaphors
ridicule lurks
in my hallway
ambitious people
take all the best lines,
and I have a headache.
I woke up with it. But
everyone wakes up
with something.