NO EXCUSE FOR POETRY

There’s no excuse for poetry.

At least that’s what I’ve learned.

From your rhymes and imagery this word worm has turned
 On concentrating experience and stretching it into the line
 On giving the random coherence and framing words
 So that they chime.
There’s no excuse for poetry,

And that is a natural fact.

It’s like that album by ATV where the image has cracked.
 Stop it. We don’t need it. It’s really so much guff.

If you look around any bookshop

You’ll find plenty of the stuff.
You’ll never make a Shakespeare
 And you ain’t no Ogden Nash.
Your words, they’re just garbage

That should be dumped out with the trash.
 Your insights are puerile and nobody wants to know
 About your past life and its challenges

And how you loved her so,
You loved her so, you loved her so, you love her so.
But there’s something fearful rising,

Deep in the heart of man.

It’s best to get it out there. Is that really your plan?
 Do you think it makes a difference

As the jackboots smash the face?
 That it’s more than an impotent excretion
 From a flailing human race?
Look. There’s no excuse for poetry.

Flann O’Brien said this, so it’s true.

There’s no excuse for your writing,

So you’d best find something else to do.

If you’re so sensitive and caring, why not become a nurse?
 Consider waiting or kitchen work and give up on the verse.
 I know, its not too serious

And you’re only trying to bring cheer,

But you really shouldn’t bother.

You should just get your arse into gear.
Find a road that’s long and winding

Where you can bury the thoughts that you keep finding.
 If you have a limerick or a riddle, set them on the griddle.
 Take the sonnet and the ballad

And turn them into verbal salad.
And do it all with full contrition,

Because there is a lot of ammunition

In the doggerel you keep dishing.

Free of useless baggage, your journey now can start
 To the realisation that you had nothing,

Ever, worthwhile to impart.
Stand up straight. Walk the highway,
 Right into the dead of night.

And don’t bother writing a poem about it.
 It is bound to be shite.