He had been this month's bright, shining hope,
With bits of promising prose poking out of literary reviews
And higher-brow magazines here and there
Like shoots of grass hither and yon between cracks in the pavement.
Then there was a novel which wasn't good, really
But dotted with enough promise to leave the arbiters of culture
Wanting more, and he decided to end the publication party
With a foot heavy on the accelerator and the tires light on tread,
Which precluded a second novel.

And so he remains, beyond the slow decay of time
Or the clucking and tut-tutting of critics
Who, bored, cranky, and ultimately undone by their own limitations,
Cannot help but add the dross of a little bronze to all the golden children.
While his peers grow older, their lives in various states of disarray,
Their legacies floating between forgotten and disrepute
He remains, on the dust jackets of first editions
Or inside the quaintly-priced paperbacks with their out-of-date artwork,
Completely untouched, his smile bright, his hair dark and curly,
His potential golden and unsullied.