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Friday, May 17, 2024

Poetry

I have no use for most poetry, at least not the fancy kind, the high falutin' kind that uses esoteric words to talk about ephemeral concepts. Poetry that uses ordinary words, meaning words I know, and short lines that rhyme, like those by Rudyard Kipling or nursery rhymes are more my cup of tea. Poems like this one by JMSmith:

The Three Powers

Blooms come, they say, from April showers,
All else comes of the three powers,
Which I can name in a short list:
The purse, the pen, the pounding fist.
If the purse should aught require,
It can purchase, rent or hire,
All goods being to market brought,
All men on offer to be bought,
It can suborn, incentivize,
Pay fists to pound, pens to write lies.
The pen to enlist volunteers,
Fills hearts with lusts and heads with fears,
Sparks firestorms of righteous rage,
Plays now the pander, now the sage,
Coaxes the tight-tied purse to spill,
Cajoles the pounding fist to kill.
And very few can long can resist
Persuasion by the pounding fist,
So what brute force wants, it gets,
The toadying praise of scribbling wits,
The contents of the tight-tied purse,
These and much more it can coerce.
Sniff if you like the bright May flowers,
Slave you remain to these three powers,
Bought by the purse, by pen bewitched,
By pounding fist to hard toil hitched.

 

1 comment:

Ole phat Stu said...

Then may I recommend you read "The ode less travelled" by Stephen Fry, ISBN 978-0-09-950934-9, which teaches you how to write all the different styles of poetry yourself.
Cost me under 7 UK pounds in 2007.