Poetry is not my fort;I cannot construct walls of meaning

To defend or to conceal

Hidden passages of depth.

Parody will neither parry

Nor thrust witticisms

Across the great divide.

Arrows of outrageous hyperbole

Won’t leave allusory quivers.

I will not pour the boiling oil of scorn

On imaginary foes.

Pyrrhic foot soldiers

Do not march meter

On Petrarchan battlefields,

Beating pentameter in their wake.

So here I stand,

Undefended,

Laying waste to words.

Scrawling my tell-tale heart across

Clumsy-constructed barricades;

Brains staked ripe for pillory,

Without rhyme or reason

Until the end-stop of the line.