Note to the poet: “Do not allow the poet to have any more Limon y Sal Modelo Chelada, or you will have other selections in your oeuvre like this one, which will have to be shamefacedly explained away later.” Signed, The Poet

*****

Recorded Reading (3:52): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/a94bg2txanvy0ryin3g5i/A-Moiety-of-Meter.mp3?rlkey=kc0w7owhhspxhexmtedsufs0w&dl=0

*****

A Moiety of Meter

Folks, we know, from time to time,
I must let off a little rhyme
And, as well, to make it sweeter,
Secrete a moiety of meter

In iambic pentameter
Which I find personally sweeter ~
It’s not so much for your pleasure
As simple relief of pressure!

I become much, much less fun
When forbidden am to pun
For as little as a day ~
For other folks, that’s all okay

They don’t seem, typic’ly, to suffer
From requirement of a buffer
Between sober reality
And their silly selves, you see,

But poets are a pickle in
Once they rhyming just begin
It’s like sweatin’ or like sneezin’
Lines proific’lly increasin’

As a high tsunami tide
On which we awkwardly ride
In a posture too well know
Arms and legs flailing akimbo

Though pure essence there we gulp
Spitting out a lot of pulp,
Inhaling a profound spray ~
Doesn’t come back out that way!

Paddling in such splatt’ring way
Through the formerly dry day
Gathered audiences wonder
How we keep from going under

(For the curious, a note
On how we manage stay afloat ~
Hass less to do with skill or care
And more to do with straight hot air!)

… Now I’ve followed to the letter
My compulsion, I feel better ~
But the same cannot be true
Of my readership of two

Well ~ two, counting myself, you see ~
Although in truth, actually,
That number really should be three ~
I think an awful lot of me!

Though I don’t really advertise
I give a consolation prize
To readers fool enough to want
To put up with each random rant

I get them back to sincere smilin’
With time on a desert islan’
Comes with a strict guarantee
They never have to hear from me!

What’s that you say, in a snit ~
I don’t know when it’s time to quit?
That I should, in civilized fashion,
Show these three readers compassion,

Make this shorter than a book
Let their poor eyes off the hook
Putting down each hot device,
If I were anyway nice?

~ Did you hear me say I was?
I don’t think so, bro, because
If anyone, myself should know it ~
What I really am’s a poet. (Pause for reflection)

So that’s the only excuse
I can offer from to choose
Between for why I am so cruel
Such an antisocial foo-el (ow!)

That I’d obliv’iously continue
To subject mis’rable you
To poesy which, endless sith
It had no point at all with which

Its author had in mind to bless
Long-suff’ring readers, she confess,
Exacerbated is, you bet
By her entire lack of regret!

*****

Until removal of the stalker/targeter/vandal/arsonist following her allows her to approach any landlord ~ even for a private parking space ~ and to begin once again to create professional connections and to rebuild her life, this poet presently lives homeless and at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level.

Arts patrons may visit http://www.UgiftABLE.com , using code #72D-31S, or choose to send a personal check to the poet’s ABLE account. It takes about two weeks for the poet to be notified of your patronage.

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