Thursday, March 24, 2011

Metre Traitor

Never, thought I, will I betray
the rhyme and rhythm of my day.
Learned in my first class of grammar
I would smash poetic traitors with a mighty hammer
and crush all in a manner of Thor
‘til they would rhyme forevermore.
And lo’ upon this aged time
I picked up a classic book of rhyme
a slim tome of Canterbury Tales
at the close of winter, to warm my entrails.
written long ago by wizened Chaucer,
who may have drunk his tea from a saucer,
I discovered that rhyme, though classically executed,
can still be a horror worse than a sky polluted.
English being a poor language to rhyme in
with phrases adjusted, as if the time in
English grammar was for naught, since
all the words seem to do is mince
across the page and carry
onward and do tarry
taking an inordinate amount of space and time
to complete what should be a shortened rhyme
slave to a meter and a rhyming pattern which
I though older and modern, am unable to ditch.

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