O Aspirant Poet

Never cut your poetic milk molar,

Toying, doodling ideas, to pen a piece

Written ere, by past contemporaries,

If your poems, would look similar

To theirs, or far worse, inferior.

Never, desiring to make a difference

Write such piece to make a pence.

An aspiring author and poet,

Must create such a novel piece,

Neither read nor writ afore.

Or perfect what poets of past,

Would have dreamt to realise.

And a matchless way to investigate

If your poem is not an eyesore,

Is to contrast it against

A dead, but accomplished poet.

Popular poets, so Unpoetic

Are Catos* created by a critic,

Constantly seeking out for an artistic

Fairy. A carpe diem* poet, of the occasion,

A rhyme(a)ster belching exaggeration,

Pompously puffed up by pouring praise.

But when these invented fairies

Depart, they fade in extinction

And RIP quietly in misty oblivion

Of the great artists an aspiring poet

Can contest against as pacemakers,

Are the dead; revered most inimitably.

That way, you are like an athlete

Sure-footed, running a race, set

Against the timer. Not simply

The perspiring proverbial champion,

That trounced the limping jokers

And joggers out of a marathon!

If you never run against time,

How would you ever know,

If you’d be aborted, or grow,

To write, an eternal rhyme?

Like master, like gent;

Like—but oh! How different!

©roundsquare.

*Cato – mythical marking scheme for morality. Perfect in everything!

*Carpe diem – seizing the moment. Here, just for the time.