I Don’t Write Poetry

By Ouida Jane Turner

My dear friend,

I don’t write poetry.

And yet, today I had to mend

A little piece of broken literature by me.

It was disordered in its rhythm

And all crippled in its rhyme.

I lacked the spark of wisdom

That would see to make it fine.

Still it was there and looked at me,

Forbidding me to give up hope.

So I went out to have some tea

With the wisest wizard of the Globe.

He’ll say, he knows just what to do,

And then whip out his wooden wand,

Still sipping at his tea of blue,

Make to his spell the words respond.

He’ll tell an A to leave the text,

And teach the rhythm how to dance.

A syllable would join it next,

‘Til nothing left be there by chance.

Then suddenly it all will rhyme,

When words and wisdom are in time,

For such old wizards never make

A tiny single spelling mistake.

So to you I came, my friend,

To say, ‘I don’t write poetry.’

And yet, I’m here to beg you: ‘Mend

This broken piece of literature

by me.’

 

Photograph: Chris Blakeley via Creative Commons and Flickr