Patriotic Poetry Please!

O please, in our poetry let’s be patriotic

And use only good old English forms

Those foreign kinds are simply diabolic

They disrupt our quintessential norms

The villanelle originated in France

It employs only two repeated rhymes

What a swizz that is, I say, and perchance

Five stanzas of only three lines

Those pesky sestinas jumble end words

“Mon cher” the troubadours said “zat will do”

I said: “I can’t make head nor tail of your structure”

It really was the most awful to-do

The haiku might be all the rage in Tokyo

But in the shires 17 syllables is frankly too brief

And free form verse depends on modern day lingo

(After a minute or two I’m ready for liquid relief!)

The limerick can be saucy, yes I grant you

I like some innuendo with my scotch

But limericks originated in Ireland

So no more of that (let’s take ‘em down a notch)

Give me a Shakespearian sonnet, guv, if you have-ta

An Italian form – yes yes, madam, I know

But like democracy and Chicken Tikka Massala

We stole the idea and made it all our own

So please, in our poetry let’s be patriotic

As we buccaneer the seven seas day by day

We’ll stick with pentameters that are iambic

And anything else we can rob along the way.