Graduation Poem

I’ve written these poems for years now and years,
Yet still lurks a lurking, a fearsome of fears,
That dreads their rejection by judgement of peers:
My learning has only begun.
And years out from now, will they gather a sigh
For the bark-of-the-dogg’rel I doggedly try ?
And a laugh at the talent that’s nowhere to spy ?
Must still my apprenticeship run ?
I reckon I’m ready to face that exam,
My verse is rehearsed and is well worth a damn,
So let me be truly the Poet I am !
Oh, say juvenilia’s done !

Proem to a Poem

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome, all –
We’ll shortly be commencing:
I promise we shall soon enthral
Those senses we’re suspensing.
So let me introduce, my friends,
This ev’ning’s main recital –
Where joy and anguish each contends,
And lovers crave requital.
An epic true, a ballad grand
As stanza follows stanza,
Heroic does this potent hand
Bring forth extravaganza:
The finest Truth on life and death
That verse has ever captured.
So hush the lights and stop the breath,
And brace up to be raptured.

The Poetry Competition of my Dreams

On any subject, of any length,
With first, second, third, then commendeds to tenth.
But note !  There’s a catch, there’s a strange paradigm –
We’re looking for rhapsodies raptured with rhyme !
We know it’s old-fashioned, we know it’s awry,
But surely you cannot be frightened to try ?
So make your rhymes nat’ral and make your rhymes sharp,
To make ’em a hammer or make ’em a harp,
Then relish your rhymes with a resonant rhythm –
But don’t try to force ’em, you just gotta live ’em !
Not plucked from the ether and cultured in jelly,
But grown like an ulcer alive in your belly.
They’ll come when they’re ready, they’ll come without warning,
They’ll come in a flood when your thoughts get to spawning –
Oh sure, they’re not perfect, they still need a polish,
But rub them too hard and you’ll only demolish.
They’re twisty things, rhymes are, a mongrel eclectic –
But get them to spark and your verse is electric.
So send us your poems that make ’em a strength –
On every subject, of every length.

Footnote

Your tetrastich hits up the top of your page,
And lonely it sits on its white and crisp stage,
Too precious to muck in, too scared to engage,
Your verse gives no truck for a cut in its wage.
Those unsullied acres were begging to share,
An ocean of paper that’s nothing but spare.
Have you, as its poet, no other to air ?
Then come on and show it !  Let’s put it in there !