With apologies to Mr Kipling... purveyor of exceedingly good poems...

 

An Iffy Poem

 

If you can write and not make rhyme your master,

If you can feel and let those feelings flow.

If you can think and find a simple structure

Which builds your thoughts of love, then lets it go.

                     

If you can find a telling rhyme or metre

Which fits with all your thoughts and feelings too,

And choose the words which truly carry deeper

Your readers’ hearts and make them see the world anew.

 

If you can find a simile which lightens,

As if you shone a torch upon this life.

Which takes us out and low mood heightens,

Like through some frozen butter cuts the knife.

 

A metaphor can hold a world of darkness;

Invisible, but present, living, breathing air.

We gasp and pant, feeling all our smallness,

In worlds of trouble, holding struggles there.

 

Alliteration belts them bravely in the belly,

Sibilance so softly slips and slides.

The senses show your taste and can get smelly

But touch me, sound it out, look deep inside.

 

Bang the listener with some Onomatopoeia,

Enjambment flows, two streams slide together

End stopping helps the sense to just stop here.

Caesura holds you. Gives your words a tether.

 

Symbols can’t be beaten, carry power,

Analogies can pierce a heart with spear,

Ironic tone can make you sound quite sour

But pathos moves you, squeezes out a tear.

 

But if you can write an ode to read one minute,

Where webs of meaning with the readers spun,

You’ll see a poem with great meaning in it.

And what is more, you’ll be a poet my son.

 

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