The Unabridged

I serve up verse in measured rhyme,
a twist of trope instead of lime,
and stir in bits of this and that
in hopes that something comes of it.

My audience, an august group,
like-minded souls, a stalwart troop
of poets, unabridged and free,
will read my work and humor me,

as I read theirs and offer praise
or deconstruct an awkward phrase,
point out a comma splice or two,
perhaps a line one might redo.

We’re featherweights compared to Pound,
and our work will never seem profound
like Whitman’s, Eliot’s or Frost’s;
still we work as hard, pay what costs.

It’s not our fault we’re past the prime,
anachronisms, out of time,
waxing words in a twittered age,
reading words written on a page.

In many ways we seem to be
examples of antiquity,
driving, striving to create
one true thing to delineate

ourselves within this soup of time,
a solid mark amid the slime
that proves that, yes, we too were here:
We write poems to make that clear.