Clod

To be declaimed with faintly tremulous pomposity
in the tradition of Henry Irving

I protest.
I am a poem that needs to be written,
demands it.
But where am I ?
Stuck in the mind of a Clod.
This is no place for a masterpiece,
a definitive statement, subtle, layers of meaning,
nuanced to achieve a quintessentially apposite image.

He’ll rhyme, I don’t like him, and still less his muse,
I suspect he could be rather rude.
And idle and trite and even quite crude.
I’ll lose all my timbre and infinite grace,
while his miniscule fame he puffs up apace.
Put me back Clod,
where you found me ,
in a place by myself
where, A POET can find and propound me

What’s that did you say ?
Are you sure, is it true ?
W e l l - .
Sweet clod, my dear poet, write me, please do,.
you must after all for my public and you.
And Daddy too,
the publisher.