Failed Poets Sometimes There are persons Who believe they are Poets And sit around Cafes And Coffee shops And write while Sipping Cappuccinos And who soak up An ambience sometimes Cool And others might Be in the bogus confines Of the McSterilility of A Starbucks And imagine themselves As the next Wordsworth, Or Plath, Or Bukowski Or Fill in the blank And what they write Doesn’t amount to Very much But they don’t know this And they think of the lives Of great poets And what they did, And try to figure Out the calculus Of poetic fame As they imagine that Someday a biographer Will write a tome About them the same Way they are reading A biography of someone They wish they could Be. But they don’t realize It will never happen. Perhaps it’s best they Never know. Poem by Michael Juchnowski