Sadly, Northerner, you're right to be a realist, but I hope your poems will be published, in Sweet or elsewhere, to reach a larger audience than these boards. Unfortunately, I have had articles published over the years, and not always been paid - once a paper went bust between publishing my piece, but before paying me. On another occasion, a website declined my offer of an article (about health on adventure races), but a year later, I revised it and sold it to another. My only aim was to get useful advice into the public domain, where it could help others, so money wasn't the issue in that case.