Rhyme! It is such a terrible thing
Although some, such as Morrissey, sing
In it. Oh god, I’m doing it already,
It’s all I can do just to keep my hand steady.
Rhyme makes you sweat, rhyme makes you shiver.
Your brain turns to jelly and so does your liver.
It’s easy to think of rhymes just to start
But often you’ll find, once past the first part
That you’re dodging ideas just because they don’t rhyme
And you can’t be bothered, or don’t have the time
To search for a rhyme, which you quickly discard,
Then guiltily use – finding others is hard.
Well, it’s easy to snicker and easy to gloat
Over those who write poems which all have a coat
Of rhymed words, some completely asinine.
But just try it yourself – by the sixth line
(if not sooner) you’ll be forcing it, the rest even more.
I challenge you! This could become a war
Between poets who’d die to hear their lines rhyming,
Who thrill to the sound of the consonants chiming;
And those you despise the very idea,
Who call rhymers “slaves”, who enjoy a sneer
At the discipline, the structure, the essence of rhyme
(which really boils down to: having the time).
There are some teachers who set rhymes to write,
Who enjoy, in fact take a perverse delight
In chuckling over this mad undertaking,
In laughing, in giggling, whilst actually mistaking
Their own threats over the absence of rhyme
As a foul perpetration of this wicked crime:
The crime if Restriction! Oh, evil deed!
Restricting a poem is restricting a need,
Blocking an outlet for emotion to fly.
Teacher, don’t you recognise a literary cry?
Your ignoring, your demands to “do it again”
Are to the young poet, her work down the drain.
That unrhymed poem might have been good free verse!
It might have been brilliant! And what’s even worse
Is that she is put off by your comment so florid,
And to save herself shame, or anything horrid,
She writes no more poems, and goes mad instead
With the unschooled thought inside of her head.
Teacher, you just deprived us of an excellent writer
By discouraging her, you stupid blighter.
Teacher, you should not do this!
Or the world will get very pissed
Off.
Recent Comments