They Call It Fame

 

“The fame thing isn't really real… you know…Don't forget …I'm also just a girl… standing in front of a boy… asking him to love her.”  Julia Roberts (as Anna Scott in Notting Hill)

A pseudo-panorama,

On the tainted panes

Of my white limousine,

The mutant flashes

Of thousands flashbulbs

Engaged in a bedazzled seizure

Of my synthetic effigy,

Through the night’s curtains

I see the scuffling torsos

Of Jurassic shadows,

The catcalls and yelps calling,

Garbled variants of my name

Coalesce in the exhaled air,

Like a frosty slush inundating

Ruins of the wraith town,

They clamor in tiny streams

For the last piece of molded cheese.

They call it

Fame.

In parallel chronologies,

When I gag in taffeta pillows

And purging in crystal lights,

I tell stories

Of a lost fable.

Once upon a time,

Camouflaged in the folds,

There lay a sculpture

Drawing cryptic contours

Around my navel ring.

As I saw the coy smile fading,

The stolid face

In a luminescence of shadows,

Your construed truths,

Mumbles of constrained space,

Soaring ambitions and antagonistic lives,

There were few beats

Of my plummeting heart

That knew what was coming.

It was over.

Sooner than the flicker of fireflies.

But there were leftovers,

A melanin residue,

He called it

Fame.

Author's Note

This is one of the spontaneous pieces I wrote. I was watching Notting Hill a few days back… and there was this scene of Julia Roberts coming back to Hugh Grant in a humble submission only to be rejected probably because the protagonist, Anna Scott( played by Roberts) was famous and the people( in the film) lead unequal lives. That was perhaps one of the ‘it’ moments of the cinematic wonders I had watched. I remembered one of the interviews given by one of the leading Indian actress who I remember telling that Fame is like the flame of a lamp- it lights up the room it is in, but beneath the flame there is darkness.

Reviews

[Empirik]

Interesting take on fame. Never heard this way before. I liked it, but it was dark. As the night falls and we search for one last breath to be seen by others it gets absorbed in the wind of today and surrounds the grey mist-like-fog coming towards you.There's no mistake. You are seen, and they call that fame too. Nice! :)

[Demi Rose]

magical in every shape and form.

[AK]

That was beautiful!

[patricia]

I was overwhelmed with the way you were saying what you were saying. Your choice of words and the shortness of each line gave it all depth and quality. You are among the elite of the poets on writers cafe, I hope you will handle the fame well when it comes.
Gag in Taffita pillows and purging in Crystal lights were just two of the remarkable lines here. Brilliant. Thankyou.

[EMF]

Not only is this a marvelous analysis of fame, but it is a terrific piece of writing.

[Asb]

nice observation and a perfect write for what is called as fame :)

[The They]

Fame is as quick as the flashbulbs in your first stanza. Odd how some people crave it and think it will make them happy.