Sharp angled verse
And razor edged images
Slash and jab
At the heart and mind.
Surprising and new.

Short, sharp reports
Rattle through the brain.
Machine gun poetry.
A spray of ideas
Cutting rhyme to pieces
As reason dodges and weaves.
Like all battle, exciting,
But at what price?

Light and brilliance
Flash and dazzle
In a dancing frenzy.
Like many faceted armour.
Fashionable - if you keep your distance.
But hardly intimate apparel.

Rhyme is the enemy,
And meter must fall.
Flow is jostled and tossed,
But proves a hard thing to kill.

But what of the battle weary?
And of those who seek
To bring peace to the soul,
And to strengthen the weak?

Who brave deep, still waters,
And yearn to quietly converse
Amid delicate blossoms of the soul
By a gently flowing verse.

Who sing their songs
To a metered time,
And gently tickle the ear
With their pattern and rhyme.

Brave soldiers who shed
The hard armour of war,
To reveal the soft, rounded flesh
Of a soul who'll fight no more.

But whose courage and strength
Remain firm and undiminished.
But who know when the time
To fight their fellow man is finished.

D.J. Ludlow Copyright 2001

I penned this one after becoming a little hot under the collar at the introductory remarks of a poetry contest judge who proudly admitted that he didn't even bother to read anything that rhymed labelling any poet that tried to rhyme as banal. He also admitted to knocking out about three quarters of the entries on title alone on the pretext that he could tell from the title alone whether the poem had anything worthwhile to say. There was more!