POEMS USED TO RHYME
Poems used to rhyme.
In time, the couplets were dispensed.
Incensed, today’s poet rebels from rhyming schemes,
It seems. The writer, newly shedding the shackles of quatrains,
Refrains from even a modicum of lilt.
And built now from unpaired diphthongs,
His songs have lost a measure of glue.
It’s true. No longer does the ear delight
In flight of fancy, in teeter-totter,
Like water on the endless sand, the to-and-fro,
And no, this tide will not abate.
Of late, I find that poems no longer draw me in.
They’re thin.
—from Rattle #85, Fall 2024
Tribute to Musicians
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Doc Mehl: “In songwriting, poetry, or prose, I strive for (and rarely achieve) poignant simplicity. Genius is overrated. Simplicity is its own form of genius.” (web)
