D. B. DEVILLIERS

I’ll concede that this poem is likely
little more than an
exercise in arrogance
but I’d call myself
a fairly smart man
and I’ve been so told for
a long time
and I’ve been told, too
about the great things I’d do and be
because I’m a smart man.
Well, I haven’t seen much of that
in spite of their best standardized predictors
and I guess I must’ve been
a bit of a
disappointment
when I ended up being a little
less smart
than they’d insisted I was
but I have myself discovered one aspect
of intelligence
that nobody ever told me about
so don’t let anyone tell you
that these things come
without cost.
I’ll admit, I might be wrong
but I doubt it—
see, I’ve found that there’s just one guarantee
with intelligence
and that guarantee is that
it’s pretty
fucking
lonely.