I just can’t think who wrote it, And I never learned its name. But I know it begins With a line about sins – Or maybe a line about shame.
I know I used to quote it, But it’s long since slipped away. But I know at its head Is a line about Fred, Or maybe a line about Ray.
I always meant to note it, But I let the words grow faint. But I know at its start Is a line about art, Or maybe a line about paint.
My mem’ry just can’t float it, For I’ve racked yet can’t recall But I know at its lead Is a line that I need – Just that line, just that first line is all.
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.
At school, they taught us poetry, And how to read them, and just what they meant, And we recited dutif’ly – And still I think they barely left a dent.
Strange, they never taught us songs, But we still understood them well enough – Their loves, their hopes, their rights and wrongs – Cheesy, sure – but boy, they were the stuff !
Poems once were fun and catchy, Now they’re Worthy, now they’re Art. My mem’ry of their lines is patchy, Yet I know a thousand songs by heart.
At school they taught us poetry, On long and stuffy afternoons – But we learned far more humanity From crappy lyrics sung to catchy tunes.
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 ?
detail from Woman Writing a Letter by Gerard ter Borch
Epistophile
Her lovers’ ink, the sneerful think, Is sentimental brine – But no, I say, for each cliché Is lyricment divine ! The very fact her tritesome pact Is heaped upon my shrine Is surely worth all laboured birth – Her rapturelust is mine ! Her spotted graft becomes a draught Of witticismic wine – Her passion grows in purple prose, To bloom incarnadine.
Poetry is ev’rywhere, Ev’ry day has rhymes to share, Ev’ry one has verses lurking, Ev’ry chance, the words are working, Headstones whisper epitaphs, Letters to the Telegraph, Dylan lyrics, hip-hop crew, Aides-memoire and billets-doux, Nurs’ry rhymes and wishing wells, Playground chants and magic spells, Proverbs old and riddles vexed Advertising copy text, Couplets quoted from the Bards, Purple prose and greetings cards, Epigrams and tetrastichs, Cockney slang and limericks, Lear, Milne and Tennyson, Lennon, Carroll, Chesterton, Milligan and De La Mare, Poetry is ev’rywhere.
Oh Carol-Ann, what’s the plan, Why did you do it ? Why wallow in the treacle, And swallow back the bile ? Poor Carol-Ann, scrape the pan Of stodge and suet. First among the equals, Or stuck in rank and file ? Oh Carol-Ann, it seems these days your worth Is turning out for weddings and for funerals and births. Oh Carol-Ann, do the bay leaves hide the stink ? Or does your pseudo-crown somehow affect the way you think ?
Oh Carol-Ann, make it scan, Don’t make it tricksy: Your patrons are old fashioned By sev’ral hundred years. Come Carol-Ann, praise the clan, Each fop and pixie, And keep your passion rationed As you swap your pals for peers. Oh Carol-Ann, just a lackey of the old elite Praising little princelings, and sucking on the teat. Oh Carol-Ann, all that bowing sure puts up your back – I hope you do not choke on your precious butt of sack.
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.
Ah, those Classicists, Those poets of antiquity ! They never faced the style fascists, Never faced creative mists, With lines that must engage in trysts – They could keep it loose and gritty. Rhythm, metre, drove their gist. Their audience would ne’er insist Their lines be docked and chimed and kissed – How our plight they must so pity. Sappho, Virgil, Homer, Horace Never had to suffer this – They never had their epic bliss Reduced by form into a ditty. Of all the literary crimes Befallen us since ancient times, I curse the most whoe’er invented rhymes.
Rhyming Couplets 