Damn the Rejections – Full Speed Ahead
written by: Ken Gosse
If you can keep your head while all about you
are scratching theirs and wondering who you are;
if you can keep your humor while all doubt you
and wish you’d go away, and very far;
if you don’t mind embarrassment ad-naseum
when people say you don’t deserve applauseum;
and if you see yourself without rejection
or disappointment in your own reflection,
you’ve reached the point where you’ll learn who you are:
It just might be that you’re a super-star.
NOTE:
Inspired by Rudyard Kipling’s 1910 poem “If.”
Based on the Prompt – Breaking The Chain
Ken Gosse prefers writing short, rhymed verse with traditional meter usually filled with whimsy and humor. First published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, since then in Pure Slush, Home Planet News Online, Spillwords, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, and others. Raised in the Chicago suburbs, now retired, he and his wife have lived in Mesa, AZ, over twenty-five years with rescue cats and dogs underfoot.
Latest posts by Ken Gosse (see all)
- Damn the Rejections – Full Speed Ahead - August 3, 2026
- A Hopeful Beginning - July 15, 2026
- Casing The Batter - April 12, 2026
