Poetry's Fork


I can understand why you can't stand rhymes. 
The assonance assaults your mind and your ear.
When you hear rhymes, especially in metered lines, 
they distract you like chimes, 
and you were already distracted by the sing-song 
sound of iambic pentameter: 
childish, vain, and old-fashioned. 

And I see why free verse bothers you — 
no borders does it know... 
wanders wherever it goes... 

So the matter is.
Divergent roads never merge.
Walk another way.





The Parts of a Poem 


It almost certainly has a nose
How else to tell a rose so sweet — 
As well it surely must have toes 
Necessity — for one with feet — 

No verse can go without a brain 
For so the train of thought is caught — 
And quite essential is the heart
(There's hardly a more vital part)

But such there is — unmentioned yet
(Although at times we might forget)
It's most important of them all:
Every poem has a soul.