Poems that rhyme, they aren’t wrong
some write them short, some write them long.
I learned to write them while quite young
the rhyming words spilled from my tongue
like raindrops off the leaves of trees
which to and fro swayed in the breeze.

I feel in this I had no choice,
to compose in this rhyming voice
the books my parents bought to read
had hooked me on this grating deed.

I learned them from those dogs that go
(I heard that they make yellow snow)
there was that fish the color blue
who swam a paper river new
and then the guy whose name was Sam
who wouldn’t eat that awful ham
I had to write a rhyme that locks
in step with box, and fox, and socks.

My heart was tied with cord or string
to break the cycle I wouldn’t.
though other authors would take a swing
somehow I thought I shouldn’t
I wished the cord was weaker, something
softer like spaghetti
I longed to write a poem of stuff like
Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

But poems that rhyme are welcome
in any high school English class
to offer something different would
take stones made of high brass
in college things were different
you could deviate convention
and have no fear your work might
cause you permanent detention

I studied Walt in tea and read the leaves to
learn my future
Emily was too busy to stop but
I read about her as well
and Frost was on the pumpkin
and Carl invited me to play in the sand
on a dune far away from the good Doctor’s
land of easy words and silly rhymes
a place of working men and shoveling things into
cool tombs.
I enjoy a good rhyme as much as I ever did
but they never made me cry tears of delight or regret
never made me boil in anger or shiver in dread
and now a days I write often in a daze and
with thought to end jams, not green hams
and what would be a good metaphor for a
man who refuses to eat puerco verde anyway?
so read all
write all
you scribes
you who are entrusted to record for the ages
what you see, feel, hear
what you taste in your lives day to day
you have a gift both to sense
and to being able to relate
those special trivial moments
that most are too busy living to notice
until their lives are too far gone
for the beauty to make any difference.

Want to comment on this Poetry? Sign up to Edit Red and you will be able to comment on Poetry and get access to: Upload your own stories and poems, get readers and their feedback, promote your work...