Dont Call It Anything

Don't Call it Anything So you write something and call it a poem. Because its is free verse it could also be mistaken for a shopping list, or a set of instructions for assembling a bookshelf, but you call it a poem! Free verse means a thousand rules can be ignored - but only at your extreme peril. This kind of writing is like riding a peddle bike with no handlebars or brakes, one word out of place and the whole thing ends up in a ditch, bent wheels slowly spinning. Eventually you learn by the daily application of ignorance and error, to ride a poem as if it were a one wheeled circus bike, but you can’t do that for long either, pretty soon a line will trip you up, then instead of a poem you are an accident happening in slow motion right there on the page. Unless you want to be metaphorically crucified or publicly burnt at a stake for God’s sake don’t call it a poem, Just say it’s this thing you do - its thoughts squiggling around on a laptop screen like worms surfacing after a heavy rain, for you just know someone is bound to tell you that it’s just a bunch of deconstructed word-worms, but that’s okay you already said that, so now you can look smart and kind of a deep thinker, and no it was never ever meant to be a poem – never, but of course you will still get mad if anyone agrees with you.