Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
To scorn delights, and live laborious days;
Lycidas --- John Milton
At the end
only one of us will survive.
From every fame-hungry sidewalk of life,
eighteen of us surrender cell phones,
careers and sex drives,
give up shaving, deodorant and eyeliner,
expose bodies and minds
to programmed humiliations
for however long the series runs.
We play at castaways
on a deserted isle,
stone savages in tribal councils,
derring-do adventurers
in mock perilous landscapes
while TV cameras telecast
our survival games
to sixty million living rooms
watching in envy and safety.
Making sure we're caught
at proper angle,
we learn easily to dissemble,
double-deal-and-cross,
make alliances so dumb and crude
the bewildered wildlife
can see through them.
And all, all of it
so that one of us will survive
for the "fair guerdon"
of one-in-a-million dollars
while the rest of us are consoled
with fifteen minutes apiece
of shame and fame
as Last Night's Loser
on Today's Early Shows.
