BY THE PEOPLE
by
JOHN M. ARRIBAS
Every form of government is eventually oppressive
Laws governing civil acts rapidly become excessive
Know all national figures, that rule from the core
Devise ways and means to throttle you, more and more
As populations increase, the need for adherence grow
To rigid parameters set, by those running the show
The fences inch closer with each new regulation
The noose tightens daily suppressing expression
Few realize, they are the denizens of closing walls
Being corralled by fiats issued: by invisible cabals
Laws can please and appease the general populate
But having their freedoms lost is the common fate
Governments rule by fooling the common man
Matter not the governance, its always a scam
Hey all you temporary oscillators
born to the impetuous posture
you gun jumping rattle shakers
wavering your body English
in a gesture of kinetic ardor
for the passage of time as leverage
against the recognition that what gratifies
and profits and returns a bit of leeway
against the fiats of civic disapproval
is but a starting point a utility
that can no longer avail the authorities
and their hold over luck and venture
yes your countenance is sanctioned
by the blaspheming throne of numbers
and faces no injunction or coercive measure
for the infinite stubby sadisms
that fill the cosmic belly
with degradation and humiliation
a digestive system congenitally supplemented
with self adulation stretched thin
to the point of fragmenting
that jangling tatty chandelier you call a mind
into a hill of lizards
you can't see the horizon from
shiver and blanch to the bulletin that
the lingering scraps of your empire
have been licensed for repossession
If I may, to my fellow would-be poets,
Hereon pose an imperative query
(Yet mostly destitute of the greatest urgency),
Then I who, in the gross majority of my inditings hereon,
Am of quite a Shakespearean and Miltonian bent:
Yet in the years succeeding the terminus of my schooling,
During the everlasting course thereof, I learned many a thing
Indeed an immense preponderancy of such,
And among these congeries of learning, there can be accounted
Even a myriad of the manifold precepts of poetry
And the fiats and decrees, commandments and
Ordinances governing it;
Yet for all of the sufficiency and yet preponderance of
Poetic enlightenment and enrichment, I recall nary a thing
Thereof!
It may be inborn, inherent,
Ingrained, innate...
But do I, who is of a Shakespearean ilk,
To my fellow aspiring poets, writers, and poet-writers ask:
Is this, or aught of my other poems, in anything
Remotely likened to the metrical sort that he and Milton were
Wont to use?
And an it be so,
Beteem me to learn its name,
And an so, is't truly termed by that sobriquet
Known as "iambic pentameter"?
Is it in this that I write?
Are all my poesies thus enwritten?
New Fiats can be seen on the roads of our nation
since they took the reins of the Chrysler Corporation.
One hundred and eight horsepower does not seem like a lot.
However, that's all we need. The engine gives all it's got.
This Italian machine is quite a diminutive dynamo.
Being very light, it can really get up and go.
Fiat departed North America about three decades ago.
Thankfully, these Italian automobiles have returned.
They are once again displaying the reputation they have earned.
These cars display power with great fuel economy.
If one is good enough for the Pope, it's good enough for me.
Destiny baits rendering fiats.
The extremes turn to falling dreams.
I’ve lost all cause and placed cost.
My heart is dead and blue plagues the nail bed.
Forget the past and die for what must last.
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.