Writing the New Poetry

Start with what you borrow

and steal from what you've read.

Find the bucolic in the urban,

the numinous in the scientific.

Mix in -or up- a metaphor

- like any kenning beats a simile.

Do not use all the cards in your hand,

lay out a patience; clock or forty thieves.

Keep your zeugma up your sleeves

or your figurative powder dry.

'Ware the rhyme! It tempts to archaism

and the folly of forced alliteration.

Choose some formality of shape

and pervert it with no apparent shame.