NOBODY GETS WHAT THEY DESERVE

“…you can’t always get what you want,
but, if you try sometimes, you get what you need.”
~ Rolling Stones

What is the worth of a well-turned phrase,
a line full of meter and rhyme?
How do you value a passage of prose,
a moment’s depiction in time?

What is the cost of a sentence or two
that rolls off the tongue so refined?
Is there a price to a word of advice
that sits in the back of your mind?

To live for today, there’s a price that we pay,
that is just “what the market will bear,”
we all set the value for our wants and needs
whether it’s fair or unfair.

We have some set notion of our own worth
commensurate to our dexterity,
and we sometimes feel slighted when the things that we write
get lost in our search for some clarity.

So, how is it as poets that we set the bar
to get the respect that we crave?
We beg and we plead for someone to just read
and accept in our minds that we’re “saved”.

But that phone seldom rings extolling the things
we offer the world, full of pride,
opportunity knocks rarely, we’re hanging on barely
and pent up our emotions inside.

So we just keep on writing while ideas are fighting
to be the next thought that inspires,
and use that spark to flame our muse,
to kindle our poetic fires.

We post our submissions with our kind permission
for those of our ilk to admire,
we bolster each other, poet sister and brother,
and encouragement is what stokes our pyre.

And so it is true this thing that we do
won’t always “pay” what we plead,
we will still plug away and pray for the day
and work hard to get just what we “need”.