where art collides philosoperontap

For some who choose to sip from the Spring of Hyppocrene
rhyming’s like a virus for which there’s no vaccine;
our poems read like excerpts from traditional pantomime
Beware you would-be wordsmiths, the curse of verse is rhyme
Rhyme’s merely ornamental, a sort of literary glue
fun when writing doggerel or limericks or clerihew
but it can be an affliction, a craving, an addiction
Don’t yield to its appeal, you’ll regret it if you do
There’ll be no more sending stories off to women’s magazines
no more dreams of writing for the screen
and as for those ambitions to see your work on stage
for literary acclaim or a tabloid feature page
once you’ve acquired the curse of verse all those doors are closed,
everything you write must rhyme, so you’ll be done with prose
and all the time the urge to rhyme just grows
Appraisals of our poems, at best, are condescending,
so don’t, as we do, waste whole days
in seeking words which share their endings
Write blank verse or stick to prose
don’t make the same mistake as we,
keep it loose, stay structure-free,
don’t write rhyming poetry.