To a Progressive Poet
Your poems read as staggered prose;
the rhythm of the words escapes you.
One assumes, un-mused, you chose
a free-verse prison to run into.
You are modern. And it shows
in lack of structure, meter, beat.
Your emperor, set free of clothes
meanders on unsteady feet
exposed as naked, fending blows
from anarch subjects bored to tears
by cryptic, existential woes
and dreary imagery. One hears
within the verbiage you compose
a load of godless free-form tripe.
The lyrical ebb achieves new lows;
the scent is somewhat over-ripe . . .
Bitter Poetaste in Mouth
Lightweight free-verse exploration,
withered ghosts and wisps of phrase,
breezy unamusing musings
barely raise
a titter, tear or lyric warning –
fail to reach a middling height;
then subside to shallow murmurs
(not quite).
Teenage existentialism
cryptic, dull confessional mush;
suitable for a poker-faced
unroyal flush.
Must you set this stuff in motion
fizzling through our universe:
half-bright comets leaving trails
of boring verse?
Incoherent thoughts meander
through your words like fish through nets
unable to ensnare your reader.
One forgets
whatever it was you started saying
(weirdly spaced, unpunctuated).
Could it be such thoughts are better
left unstated?