Godot Revisited

Why wish to be discovered anyway?

Longing for praise from academic dolts,

I'm like a character in Beckett's play

Waiting to be redeemed.  The task revolts

Me; could I just give up and grow content

With praising friends whose poems laugh at me

From pages of the journals I have sent

To twenty times?  But each SASE

Among the ads and bills may hold a crumb

To slaver over, such as "Try again."

Oh yes, I beam, tomorrow He will come!

Then editors will say they knew me when

My work was interesting, but not yet great.

Perhaps I'll hang myself.  Or else, just wait.

Jeff Holt

© 2000; originally printed in The Texas Review.
Reprinted by permission of the author.