Tarnished Poem by Doug Lane

Imagine yourself
a successful novelist
who has left
his first wife
for a famous actress.

Yes, she's unusually
beautiful and charming,
but she has entirely
commodified and commercialized
her charms,

putting them on offer
in the public arena
to the highest bidder.
To her, you are
the Pulitzer Prize winning bauble
of the moment,

giving her brand
a patina
of intellectuality
it never had before.

Her association with you
may just help her fetch
the kind of trumped up role
which could win her
an Oscar.

Inevitably she'll tire of you,
possibly as soon as
she meets
her new leading man
on the set
of her next movie.

Afterwards, it will be up to you
to return to your
savagely angry wife
and try to reconcile,
or to date
an endless succession
of literary groupies,
starfuckers
hungering to feed
on the carcass
of your fame,
which has been both
augmented and tarnished
by your recent, public,
humiliation.