Poetry for Beginners

Once, listening to a poet air
Her "educated" view,
I wondered, lonely - as "that" cloud ?...
At what she'd have me do ?

Humble cliches, much maligned,
Were shunned across the board,
Whilst with cutting denigration
She put 'AD'-verbs to the sword

"Don't mess," she said, "with meter,
Don't trouble much with time,"
And that a hopeful fist of reason
Beats a bashful bash at rhyme.

Told that verses may have virtue
Vice, perhaps ...and versa - true,
We heard, for poetry in motion
Originality's the cue.

Then an angry little cumulous,
Hand picked from one such ode,
She 'thused had very far-to-go
Along the bardic's road.

With sobs and sighs, with "me-oh-mys",
Our interests she goaded,
Till, in mists of melow fruitlessness,
Its 'vapours', they exploded.

"Whatever we might think", she crowed,
"Great inspiration springs..."
From hosts of just such lesser things,
More, 'cabbages' than Kings

From this - and more - she chose to say
I'm still perplexed, aren't you ?...
Was this advice, to bolden us
Or "taming" - by a "shrew" ?

Still, I suppose, we must defer
When she, who knows the score
Says inconsequential verses
Keep 'em coming back for more...

P.S., - not altogether fair, perhaps ?...
A trifle arch ? - ad hoc ?...
Well, let's hope poetic license
Gives me ample scope to mock ?