When the last word is written
and the last breath taken
will I be called an icon
of my time by my peers,
a master of rhyme, well-suited
to be saluted in coffee house tributes
adored by the masses with
college classes dissecting my works
and future poets looking back
while murmuring "Now, THERE was a poet!"
Will anthologies be incomplete
without my brilliance represented
and will my strong resiliance inspire others
to reach their highest potential,
essential necessity for those striving
to be known as poet?

Will there be a poem of mine
or couplet or even one single
line in which the entire world will know
as well as their own name?
Will that be my claim to fame
as The Raven relates to Poe
will there be some work of mine
they will know belongs to me
or some second line that will spring
into being by hearing the first,
some automatic burst of recognition
such as "A poem as lovely as a tree"?

Will I become a statue in the park
where passers will say 'he led by example'
and trample manicured lawns to get
a closer look at me? Will my base
be chipped by critic diamond-bit
quips and turned into a billboard
underscored by brush strokes bold
and defiant trumpeting the exploits
of Crypts and Bloods and Bill loves Tina forever?
Will pigeons find my head a perfect
place for nesting as bird dung falls,
resting on lips that once drank wine
and sang of knights, crusades, promises kept,
mistakes made in folly of youth,
now silenced by the truth of the grave?

Or will I be nothing more than a stone
on the ocean floor, polished clean by the motion
of unending movements of the tides
where all that resides are other invertebrae
like me, out of view from a humanity
that doesn't care and never did,
hidden in blues from those who look
but do not see the me there
lying in the sea.
Should a child find me on the shore
and fling me out to count the skips
one, two , three, four
before turning away in disinterest
will I feel the foam envelope me
and know that I am home?