ALL OF MY ILLUSIONS

ALL OF MY ILLUSIONS

I once loved a singer, more than one if truth be told,
But I wrote my idol a fan letter, each word polished as if it were gold.
She must have thought I was a crazy fool,
Like a boy with a crush in grade school.
And though I never thought in my wildest dreams,
Never in these impersonal times,
She wrote to thank me for my praise,
A handwritten note, lovely and so kind.

For awhile I wrote her every year,
A fan note without fail.
She sent me beautiful autographed pictures,
Filling my billowing sails.
And always those exquisite notes,
So gracious and so thoughtful too.
She must have known what she meant to me,
And how I loved her music true.

And I treasured those notes with all my heart.
I will keep them safe 'til the twelfth of never,
Today I love her more than ever,
Buy her CDs two copies each,
Lest one get scratched or lost forever,
Once more to the marketplace, once more into the breach.

It's typical of me to latch onto people,
To somehow claim them as my own,
Somehow I have a personal connection,
To poets and writers I have never known.
The day I found their life did not depend on me.
Or my life on their own,
All of my illusions shattered,
And fell from off their velvet thrones.
Somehow I fancied they could feel me in their audience,
That they sensed my presence there,
That it was my fault if they flubbed a lyric,
That my fandom filled the random air,
Of concert halls and music clubs,
Of lime kiln theaters and pricey pubs.

By now you are perceiving how stupid I could be,
To carry idolatry to extremes.
To think I meant something
To someone with so immense a gift,
But oh how I feel my spirits lift,
Whenever her voice rings,
The clearest bell I've ever heard,
The mistress of the written word,
And all that's good that lives between.

Truth be told I've done it with my doctors too.
Not just famous troubadours picked from out the blue.
Pretended they cared and liked hanging out with me.
Like I was someone special, not just another patient to see.
For Parkinson's is lonely and the doctors somehow understood,
More than just the average individual would.
When all they ever wanted was a timely payment of their fee.
Less verbiage and misery and whining from me.
The day I found that they were only there,
To write prescriptions, and not to really care,
Was the day all my illusions vanished into air.

Bet you docs say that to all the Parkinsonians,
Extend your hand and address them by their first names too.
Say good day as they go their way, your good will fine and true.
It's just some of you are better than others with sensitive souls like me,
And have honed to a grand and a merciful T, the art of authenticity.
Medicine is as much art as science and in the midst of such confusion,
Hope is required to stay alive, and thrives on my illusions.

You my love with your lust for cleaning, your fancy brooms and vacuums,
I am hoping that you really love me,
Are not standing far above me.
That the dream we share far transcends,
And that I can someday make amends,
For all the coffee I've spilt in these hallowed rooms.
That I can find mercy for my flaws,
For all my stumbles and my falls,
For the tears in which I drown,
For all the times I have let you down.
For if not, I am lost utterly, in the dungeon of a dream.
You are my last illusion, so please be what you seem.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2012
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Note: I will always love my favorite singer and always love my doctors. This is a poem about me, and not them. Like my earlier poem "Imagined Slights", this is a poem about my own insecurities, insecurities I wish I did not have and will never understand.