I don’t mean to sound terse
But I just don’t do free verse
Don’t ask me to prove I’m smart
These lines are better played to the heart
The rules have long since been broken
So, adherence to the old-avante-garde seems a bit token
I preach to the masses
Not those who teach English classes
With meter and rhyme
Measured speech, imperfectly timed
I tell the tale of my times
With the names changed to mask our crimes
At the risk of sounding absurd
I stay approachable with the rhyming word
Relying upon my intuition
For my artistic inspiration
Confronting sublimity
Confronted by my own need for humility
Creating an artistic interpretation
Of natural phenomenon taken as my inspiration
A method as old as time
Telling my tales with rhyme
Oddly, I have been called a Romantic
My wife thinks realistically, that’s a point of semantics
She’s probably right.
A tale, perhaps, for another place and time
But, I’ll goddamn-guarantee it’ll be set to rhyme
Tags: Stephen Handlin