PLEA FOR POETRY

[Heartfelt ... ]

Oh please, can we bring back the Poem,
And have a lot more of the Verse?
There isn't enough
Of the good rhyming stuff,
A state of things we should reverse.

For lines made in verse can have feeling
That cannot be uttered in prose.
Frolic, frustration,
Depression, elation:
Use language poetic for those.

Dear chaps, on a Saturday morning,
As you grubble away 'neath the bonnet,
Please don't mutter or curse -
Coax that engine in verse,
And tune up your car to a sonnet.

What fun it would be to read Hansard,
If Verse were the Speaker's mandate:
Each Question Time canto
Would sound just like Panto,
With the oddest of Odes in debate.

Dear ladies, make shopping poetic,
And write out your list by the stanza,
Which you chant to yourself
As you search, shelf by shelf,
For the week's gourmet extravaganza.

World Leaders in conclave together
Seek to toss up a peace-making salad:
If they took the time
To argue in rhyme,
Perhaps we'd find peace - in a Ballad.

So bring back the Sonnet, the Rondeau, the Ode,
With scansion and metre and rhyme,
In lilting candenza,
Beginning to endza -
Come on, World! It's Poetry time!
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