Sputterpub's Blog

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.

There’s no Fair Market Value for a poem.
Equipment isn’t needed to proceed.
It’s folk-art that can be composed at home
and won’t pay, so I won’t pay you to read.
With so few viewing every chosen word,
I’d be a fool to dwell too much upon it.
I’ll never feel the fame, and it’s absurd
if I expect attention to this sonnet.

That leaves me free to ply my pen with themes
that find no eyes to tickle or offend.
So I can write with dash, or to extremes,
except my focus frames and won’t extend
beyond the span a toddler’s arms comprise,
twice-weekly stocked with wonder for my eyes.