DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR

DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR

Ever since I was a child, I had the biggest dreams,
Never mind that most of them ended tearing at the seams.
Whenever I found a manure pile, there was a pony in it somewhere,
And life for me was Langston’s famous crystal stair.

I wrote a poem for Janis Ian and gave it to her at Orkney Springs.
I don’t know what I hoped for, but it must have been some lavish thing.
Perhaps she’d take it from the bag and read it there in front of me,
And I would be the poet laureate I’d always hoped to be.

Perhaps the beauty of my words in juxtaposition on the page
Would touch her heart like her songs had touched me at an impressionable age,
And perhaps my poem would make her cry and she would right there
shed a tear,
And I would catch it roll right down her cheek and keep it as a souvenir
And hold it close forever, sleeping with it every night,
To make my life like a rising sun, shining ever bright.

And just the other day, having shaken Judy Collins’ hand
At the end of a stunning show,
I wrote her her yearly birthday card and a fan letter most sincere,
For Judy and her music have been an inspiration through the years.

And then three days later, coming home from work,
I saw a white stretch limousine waiting at the light.
And I thought just maybe it was Judy inside that limousine,
Headed down Millwood, straight to Cameron, to my humble home,
To throw her arms around me and to thank me for my yearly tome.
All the way from New York City she had come in crazy motion,
To tell me she had saved my letters, to praise my great devotion.

Ever since I was a child, I’ve had delusions of grandeur,
An overactive imagination that overstepped the bounds of reason
That led up Langston’s crystal stair in search of fame and glory,
A climax sweet to a common life, a fitting end to my common story.

-BRUCE POTTS
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