As a poet I ought

to devote a bit more care to my craft,

yet my rhymes are a crime

as I try to fit ‘find’ with ‘grime’.

Is it because I have too little time,

or just that I’m too lazy to count out the right syllables

and try to pass by with half-rhymes existing only in accents risible

along with a helpful helping of ‘artistic license’

with the vain hope that everything – something – will make sense?

 

Of course poems are not only about shape and form

(I say so because mine look like a stunning landscape

after volcanic devastation), but rather the escape

into vaguely familiar, vaguely abstract imagery –

things only the mind’s eye could ever see;

the catharsis of pouring out every mangled emotion

into equally mangled handwriting; or the notion

that mere coherence cannot convey

the crushing sense of Big Brother’s sway.

Perhaps it’s the bare minimum I can do

with words to say a final goodbye to you.

 

Generations of giants have managed to tell us so more

and fill our limbs with the drive to explore

the unfenced pastures no tamed creature has seen before.

Absolute freedom for a fettered class,

we rejoice across borders together at last,

and plunge unimpeded into the soul and psyche,

each and every work to inspire a feeling.

So even though I try to pass with only occasional assonance,

I guess it’s worth it even if I make myself an asinine nonce.