I Cannot Ever Bothered Be by Dennis Allen Lange

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When moderns say that rhythm’s passed,
…And rhyming verse is trite,
What would the great Longfellow say
…About that arrow’s flight?

Such talk is like an acid rain
…That falls on Dickinson,
And kills her bees and Kilmer’s trees;
…Coats Kipling’s dawning sun.

That dart is thrown at Shakespeare, too
…And all the masters past
By men who pose as poets when
…It’s prose their work is classed.

And so I’ll stand as close I can
…To Byron, Coleridge, Keats
I’ll hold their hats or open doors
…Or drive them through the streets.

And I’ll not care when prose lines up
…In stanzas in pretense,
Or critics cough or prosers scorn
…And publishers fold tents.

I cannot ever bothered be
…When men my verse oppose.
They praise the naked emperor,
…And criticize my clothes.

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photo by Jay Simmons at
http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/nrcQGOi/landscape

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© Dennis Allen Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2018.

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow by Dennis Lange

……..Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I hear heaped praise, like waves upon the shore,
And in its falling, hints to me of more –
Of gods who disagree, a distant thunder.
All I can do is read… and read – in wonder! 

It’s straight when carpenter has found his line,
Then varies naught from what’s both true and fine.
Longfellow, too, laid down the plumb and chalked it,
Then word by word and rhyme by rhyme, he walked it. 

So often did his heart leap to his throat!
So many memorable lines we know and quote!
For his poetic gift and gait, we’re grateful.
Why thus must others be so mean and hateful? 

A critic’s dab, but people’s love – deluge.
When all love Christmas, what think we of Scrooge?
The critics cannot write; they fire a mortar.
It’s pencil envy; theirs is so much shorter.

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2015.

 

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