Ode of a Struggling Poet

Peg this word to rhyme
And bind its feet in fire,
Proclaim meaning as crime
And nail grammar as desire.

“Are you the king of poets?
Yet it’s your people that decry:
Fancied fakery in your voice
Mouthing syntax is not divine!”

“Say or link or write it!
Do you not see the Light?
God’s gift is merciful tongue
Uncinquered in every word’s flight!”

“Caesarian pride hails you…
Reason and rhyme combined,
Canon and comma commands though
That concept-heresy be defiled.”

“Not even a good iambic!
(Ill-counted-syllable-whore)
Selling yourself as artsy
Kitsch from heretofore!”

“I wash my hands of this…
Your hypenation is wrong.
This is not a poem you wrote –
All but hogwash and filth.”

“All your people’s repulsion
A Life's work disowned.
Ask me not why poets hunger
I beg you retract your oath!”

The Man thus, hyphenates a point
And dies an unpublished cross:
Post-humously venerated
In words not his own.

It was said he did unleash
The power of the Word.
To this date still a dream
That poem truth be told.

Am I bestowed gift-divine
Defining my heart enthrall
In this structural foreign pyre
Do I not hunger and die?

So I peg the Word to rhyme,
Hyphenate distance and Time,
Proclaim I am a disciple
But no one sings my psalms!