Semantic Indignities Poem by Alexandre Nodopaka

I received three rejections this month
of my five submissions of art. I promise
myself not to submit so many in a month
because it's heart breaking news to fail
so many times in a row.

I don't mind my art to be rejected but these
negative news have a way of trickling down
to my psyche and strangulating it. I can live
with one rejection but two start a downward
spiral and three simply is crushing.

I prop myself up at my keyboard and work
intensively on another set of artworks and
try to outdo my other ten thousand art pieces.
I still have not learned the lesson that there
are seven billion other artists going through

the same mental blocks. I see them hitting
their heads against the Kotel ha-Ma'aravi but
Herod can't hear. Now what has the Wailing
Wall to do with my failures is that I also need
a place to pray for my past success.