I’m a Poet, Not an Actor

Don’t ask me to read my verse
That sounds so dulcet in my head
But strangles on my tongue, and worse –

So I remain a poet,
Who must write my music down instead –
And never sing it, only show it.

Hire an actor if you’re glad to hear,
The thoughts of a muted man –
I’m just lyrics, they’re the ballardeer.

An actor who can lift my lines
In that easy way I never can –
And dress my stanzas to the nines !

An actor who will never mumble,
Never lilt, or gabble blindly on –
Whose feet will never stumble,

But bestride my words with vigour
Till this duckling soars a swan.
However small my print, they’ll make me bigger…

They whisper, pause, then roar and rally,
Words that need to be enbodied –
To the summet, down the valley –

If my words are calls to action,
It is they who see them lobbied
Into ears for satisfaction.

Submissions Policy

We are a prestigious journal of literature,
Just three times a year –
We favour the terribly serious, dense and obscure,
We hope that’s clear.

We’ve got a readership high in the double-digits,
We’re highbrow, yet cosy –
We look-down on rhyming as only for populist midgets,
But love verse that’s prosy.

So if you send us one, just one, of your poems,
Make sure it’s unseen –
For if you dared to succumb to a previous showing,
It’s no longer clean.

It might be only your blog, and viewed by only a few,
But that is enough !
What were you thinking, to waste your words, adieu,
Like any old stuff ?

You should have kept it locked in a drawer,
Until our benevolent sun
Is shone down upon it, as no eyes before,
Its virgin lines undone.

If you’ve said it before, we won’t help you say it again –
You’re spent goods, my dear.
For we are the ultra-exclusive, and so shall remain,
Just three times a year.

Archipelago

Some say poets are randy goats
With endless groupies from the herd –
The source of passion-dripping quotes,
And rock stars of the spoken word.
And yes, their tongues are best when spoken,
Lilting, accented, uncowed –
As something primal has awoken,
Glamours cast when breathed aloud.

Some say poets are balding folks,
Bespectacled and analytic,
Full of dry and clever jokes
That half will miss…but not the critic.
Their mumbled tones are flat and beige,
Each vaguely RP, lacking hype –
No, theirs are poems for the page,
And come to life when set in type.

Some say poets are dreamy souls
Who pluck their verses from the ether –
Whispered into pigeonholes
By some unkempt yet soft bequeather.
Screamed and rambled on the stage,
And scribbled down to be forgot –
They’re sometimes tortured, sometimes sage,
And yet their words still hit the spot.

Some say poets, and far too many,
Neither speak nor set to ink –
They never want to share with any,
Terrified of what we’ll think.
And good luck to them, writing verse
Within their heads, a private lay.
There’s none are better, none are worse –
They’re poets all – as some would say.

Fork it !

I don’t want to tell you how to read me,
I want you to already know.
I don’t want you to think in 3-D,
Second-guessing how I ought to flow.
I want your way to be like my way,
Even though you’ve never met me –
Follow your gut, you’ll do okay,
That is, if you get me – really get me –
But you won’t, huh.  Nobody will.
So read it however you like, I guess.
I mean, at least you read it still,
That’s something.  I should worry less…

Fill Me

They bought me a beautiful, vellum-weight notebook,
For writing my poems, they said –
I guess they were picturing pages of captures
As soon as they popped-in my head,
With my trusty Mont Blanc that’s uncapped at the ready
To lay down a copperplate hand,
With barely a cross-out or spelling mistake,
Just as though my impromptues were planned.

Alas, I am a spidery poet
With so many stabs at a line,
And a cack-handed script from a leaky old biro,
That smudges and tatters the spine.
I write all my poems upon the computer,
That freely forgives me my sprawl –
It isn’t the least bit romantic, I’ll grant,
But it’s that or no verses at all.

I am in awe of those Victorian authors who could write a three-volume novel entirely in longhand, without constant insertions, deletions, and revisions.  Did they infact need to write-out the entire book again as a fair copy ?  But my greatest admiration must go to the Victorian editors who could manage to read all of that handwriting for a thousand-plus pages…

Wordwear

Poems are delicate shoes,
And prose is sturdy boots –
The footwear that we choose
Is governed by its use:

So when we need to tread with care
Or dance between ideals,
We may choose verse, and lace a pair
Of taps or kitten heels.

For poems are stilettoes,
Sharp and with a click –
While prose is from the ghettos,
Stout and with a kick.

So when we need more tongue and strength,
Where mud and thorns compete,
We’ll don our boots to march at length,
In plain and simple feet.