Four Times Twenty Lines

Eighty Lines

Steeled to write
A poem of eighty lines
In reverence to
The Wasteland, Cantos
Or something Auden did
So get set
To squeeze words out
Yeeeaaarrrgh! There goes
Some more, I was told
That the true 'poets'
Pen such things
But do not rhyme
The stanzas
For the clock to chime
Damn! Cheating it is
The mind
Plays tricks on this
Writer, automatically
Seeks rhymes to find
There I go
Again, the true pretentious
Git, or genius
Maybe, deliberately
Produces epic
Works, which sound
Good to the untrained
Ear, but don't rhyme
Self conscious
Am I that the charge
Of limerick writer will barge
Into the equation
Shit! I've done it
Again, perhaps t'is best
To cheat a little
By spacing
Full sentences, out
In little fragments
Whoops at least
That doesn't rhyme
So well at forty
Perhaps I will find
My work is a feast
Or not, Christ!
Somebody shoot me
Now, then
Settle down to
Compose classic
Verse that will
Traverse
'The Ages!' or
Something like that
Epic and wind
Swept, perhaps I'll
Give it a fake
Latin title as
I approach
The final quarter
Should've writ
Summat about
My daughter
Rather than
Wax lyrical on
Places or times or
Settings or faces
I've never seen
I think of
'Lyrical' in
Connection with
Camus put
In obscure
References or at
Least try to
Or put 'I' and
'II' above stanzas
To make it dead
Good like
The Wasteland
Hope I've not
Miscounted and
Thank Christ