Some Things are Beyond Rhyming

If I read one more bloody poem which
Rhymes move with love,
Or prove with love,
Or cove with love,
Or some such non-concording glitch –
I swear I’ll tear it from the page,
My critique serving to assuage
My poet’s rage.
Each lazy half- and quarter-rhyme,
With stubbly chin and flaccid lust,
Just can’t be arsed, it’s marking time –
It’s only there because it must –
On speaking terms, but only just.
And then they have the rough-faced gall
To drag in love among their ranks,
To mangle with their petty pranks
And gen’ral lack of wherewithal –
For love, as ev’ry poet knows,
Has few bedfellows of a pair –
It won’t be shunted into rows,
Or sold-off cheap in shabby fare.
Don’t leave your love where rhymes rehearse,
But let it flow throughout your verse –
For love is never trite or neat,
And rare those words that sound as sweet.

The Shape of the Pear

Oh, why did you have to choose that one ?
Of all I submitted, my only enthral.
But that one is nothing, ’tis makeweight and fluff
A ditty so petty, so bluffing and rough
I sent my perfected, my searing-most stuff
And all were rejected, excepting this one
Which you rank above all,
Which you published and all,
Which you say betters all, ev’ry poem I’ve done.

Oh, why did you have to choose that one ?
Of all I submitted, they only appal,
Bar this merest jotting of thoughts best forgotten
With metaphors fraught and with sentiments rotten.
Yet all were rejected, excepting this guff
Which you rank above all,
Which you published and all,
Which you say betters all; this one poem’s enough.

Oh, why did you have to choose that one ?
Of all I submitted, you favoured the small.
No really, no really, if only you’d hear me,
I hate that one dearly, if only you knew.
I’ve others a-plenty, oh let me send twenty,
For that one torments me, it’s not what I do.
Yet still they’re rejected as less than this trite,
Which you rank above all,
Which you published and all,
Which you say betters all, ev’ry poem I’ll write

Oh, why did you have to choose that one ?
Oh, why did I ever submit it at all ?

narrative conflict

i was struggling with a
verse the other day and i
just thought oh
sod it i don’t need this
hassle
trying to find a
rhyme for
orange
i mean what’s

the point and by the
way it’s door hinge
so i just
screwed up my
paper and started afresh without any of these
petty
bourgeois
rules
like punctuation
and capital letters

And then I just thought
“You know what – sod it again !”
Cos this just ain’t my way of kicking the ball.
I’ve got myself caught
In an indolent vein
That hurriedly dashes its prosy and unrhyming scrawl.
But no.  Don’t resort
To compare ev’ry strain –
They’ve theirs, and I’ve mine, and that’s all.

But mine is the old way
The bold way, the gold way,
The staying-up-late so the rhymes-can-unfold-way.
This self-yoked endeavour that’s so damn important,
And takes for just ever (though feels like it oughtn’t.)

And three hours later, those bourgeois old rules
Have finally rendered their delicate patter.
The verse is the greater for working with tools
Where even the commas and capitals matter.

But, for the lexicographic’ly curious
Rhymings can always be found to lurk –
There’s always a door hinge for seekers laborious –
Some meritorious, others a perk.
There’s only two rules that matter unspurious,
Two rules to punish the poets who shirk,
Two rules to render all verses victorious –
– Make them all glorious.
– Make them all work.