883 (continuation of 882. S.H)

Struck dumb, feeling I dare not even try,

I realise how stupid I have been.

You may be great and make most readers sigh

With admiration, like some love-sick teen

But all we really do is mess with words

Creating patterns for those who choose to read

So worrying about them is absurd

For we have no control, once we concede

The poem's finished and we cast them out

Into a world where, if they're mine the lot

Will go unnoticed, while yours without a doubt

Will pass as perfect, even if they're not.

          And even if somebody likes my craft -

          Make money out of verse? Don't make me laugh.

Make money out of verse? Don't make me laugh,

For though a few may live by what they write

Even the best must find another craft,

A lectureship or TV late at night

Where they can carve a corner for themselves

Which feeds the mortgage or the private schools,

Fills up the Sainsbury's trolley or the shelves

Of books within their study, while the fools

Convince themselves that literary lives

Are somehow far above the stupid mass

Who choose to write but must survive the knives

Of bitter critics and the upper class

          Who all know what they like and what is best

          Though they refuse to put it to the test.

Though they refuse to put it to the test

We grudgingly accept they have the power

To over-praise what's second rate at best

And vilify the sensitive who cower

Before the money and the Oxbridge crew

Who've never had to work for what they need

Their silver spoons, passed only to the few,

Would choke us if we dared to match their greed.

Yet they're the ones who have the means to choose

Who will succeed and who will be ignored

Regardless of our worth, as if the booze,

The tweets and chatter could make up for the bored

          And hollow lives of vacuous part timers

          Whose verse is only meant for social-climbers.

Whose verse it only meant for social climbers?

Well certainly not mine or I would be

Far better off than now, not stuck with rhymers

Who dabble in obscure anthologies

Produced for those who think they can write verse

But

Brian Hick Jan 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 6.1.23