Poetry‘s not a rigid art

With words that fit an iron grid

Stanzas stacked like building blocks

Constructed in a futile bid

To tick the boxes, follow rules

Written words stuck in a rut

Round and round the same old groove

Boring, droning, form pre-cut

Loath to set new ideas free

Must keep the flow within its cell

Nothing fresh to draw the crowd

A reader’s bloody living hell

.................................

Poets past all knew the score

Their skill was in the ambience

Their words designed to stimulate

Provoking mood and consequence

Such works of art invoke response

Sensations that cause skin to crawl

Summoning successive strains

That seem like music to the soul

...and so I try to make a stand

Shake off the ties of rigid form

Aspiring to the poets past

Whose new ideas became the norm.