Tough on Rhyme
We’re locking up the poets
And throwing them in cells
They’re dissidents and show it
Via odes and villanelles
Collected incantations
Against the status quo
Acerbic observations
Couplets in full flow
We’re exiling the muses
To be banished somewhere grim
With Terza Rima that confuses
And volumes that are slim
Wokey right-on anarchists
Who kid no one with their balladry
Spending long nights getting pissed
And indulging in word saladry
Your rhapsodies are risible
We lambast your false bravura
Clunky metaphors, made visible
Through enjambment and cesura
Your blank verse pentameters
Bring us out in hives
They define the parameters
Of your wasted little lives
You think you’re so superior
With your sestinas and your haiku
More verbal diarrhoea
Than a symbol of your I.Q.
Each overwrought quatrain
Or precocious piece of poesy
Is your custodial refrain
And the Gulag’s far from cosy
No alliterative insurrections
In language lyrical and louche
No introspective reflections
For poetic victims of a putsch
A Stanza Division storm
Will eliminate the bards
Crushing every sonnet form
Except on greetings cards
You put the verse into subversive
You put the rhyme in crime
You’re dangerous, discursive
So now you’re doing time
John Gilbert Ellis
Sat 17th Feb 2024 17:59
Great stuff RA. Reminder how important poetry is as an indicator of freedom.
Also reminds me of the book I read recently, the stasi poetry circle by Philip Oltermann. He describes how at the start of the GDR they wanted poets, creatives to be central to society, as a contrast to the nazis. That changed over time as the Stasi got more paranoid and wanted to know more about people. Poetry gave them a glimpse into what people really thought, poetry circles were encouraged, and outputs acted on.