I ought to read more poetry – I write
it all the time. My sonnets are my thought,
my joke, my diary and diatribe.
I love the sound of Service, stanzas wrought
by Donne and much of Yeats, but I’m unmoved
by most attempters, and I’m not amused
enough. There’s nothing fun-with-fonts has proved,
and affectation makes me feel abused.

I’ll try to read more poetry, but pray
it be four times revised and twice rehearsed.
I’m asking not for solemn – let it play
with language lovingly, with meter first
and pathos last, and never flip the word
order, unless the goal’s to sound absurd.