What happens when a poet lets his pen
Run aimlessly away,
In the mid afternoon?
Soon
Maybe
He will write of a tree
Or some such thing.
Perchance he will talk of cabbages and kings.
But no, that would be to steal Mr Carroll’s words,
A thing not heard
Of amongst honest men,
Who dip their pen
In blood red ink
And think
Of original ideas.
Perchance they speak of wasted years
And tears that fall
And how all love turns to gall.
But there is, I fear
Nothing original here,
So I shall compose a verse about wenches and beer.
Yet women and wine (both truly divine)
Have been done to death by versifiers.
I must seek for different fires
To warm the hearts
Of those who lose themselves in the poetic arts.
But there are none,
For sages long since gone
Have said and done,
And had their fun
With words
That fly
Or die
Never to be heard
Again,
Accept perhaps in the rhymer’s drunken brain
Where he recollects a line
He once considered rather fine.