0190 A Novel Fairy Story For A Poetic Multi-Faith Giftmas Poem by Michael Shepherd

‘Cinderella’ (I’m using this pseudonym
to protect her identity, now she’s
ex-hot, ex-famous) , while sweeping, dusting,
fire-lighting, all that deprived childhood stuff -
felt that she had more to offer;
had not realised her full potential; so
in a cheap exercise book, wrote her
fictionalised life-story, suitably worked up,
in her spare moments; even, when short of incident,
setting up some neat situation with
her ugly sisters etc.

thanks to her friend Buttons who
was computer-literate, hence
his name, ha, she
self-published and, with a wand-wave from
her Fairy Godmother
by ‘sheer chance’ when her sisters had a famous critic
and, unusually, discoverer of talent, to dine,
hit the headlines – Booker Prize
in an off-year, interviews, weary book tours of the US,
life-style articles, all that,
- a gift to journalists, rags to riches story –
was courted through many photo-opportunities
by ex-hot celebs in search of boosting their
waning reflected glory… in short,
Hit It Big.
‘We always knew
her talent’ wrote her botoxed sisters…

until one day, her Fairy Godmother
winging past late as usual and slightly
tetchy with it, reckoned that
Our Heroine had had her fifteen minutes
and wondered what to do to slap her down; until
she remembered that she’d fixed that too –
Famous First Book Novelists
have to spend the following year
while the rest of us are having fun out there,
seeing their name fade from the headlines
and the gossip columns and
the stories planted by their PR
and cutting down on the parties
and those they do go to, they
are only half-there as they watch
for 'material', as a break from
sitting at their desk while confidence
dwindles into self-doubt
and the critics sharpen up their talons, as Last Year's Winners
scrape out that Second Novel..

and the Fairy Godmother (who
doubles as the Wicked Witch, it’s
a divine joke) chuckled in a somewhat
double-edged way, whilst checking
the time and remembering that for fairies,
arriving late increases the dramatic tension.

there’s a moral here for poets too but
to point it out would be
uncool