I’d like to write a poem
but I simply can’t be bothered
I’d like to write some prose
but I know it never goes
how or where I want it too
and
despite these metered lines
that you may recognise
as rhyme
there’s a lack of reason
and sorry,
but I must decline
any kind prosody
or balladry
or mimicry
of poets past
or any kin to elegies,
soliloquies when all I have
is entropy
slipping, dripping,
tripping from each verse
or something worse,
a curse,
a hearse of dead reflections
terse and unrehearsed
prosaic estimations
of dashed expectations
idle affectations
monologues iambic
nothing short of tragic
a dramatic lack
of magic,
a troubadour of versery
I’m not,
as is so plain
as that stain
on your character to see,
just doggerel of fantasy
lyrical calamities
soporific vanities
my poems thrown
like shit against a wall,
“vers libre!” my arse
so amateur this mask
a hemistich or
dropped-stitch
or stitch inside my side,
and never just in time,
an itch that must be scratched?
pull the other one
the one with bells
jingle bells and
shady ‘tells’
and echoes from
the deepest,
darkest well
into which
long ago
I fell,
if I could write a poem
I would, of course,
how easy-peasy it would be
“a piece of piss”
I might just say
in a flippant sort of way,
anyone can do it,
don’t they say
with words
words
words
words
these absurd
approximations of the truth
metaphysically aloof,
then poof!
the spell is broken
with half of it
still buried
unforgiving in my skin.
-Shri Ram
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