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.
