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I Don'T Give a Rat's Tail
This is the tale of a soul reaching out to others,
but receiving a cold shoulder wherever she goes.
Words and phrases
are misconstrued,
meanings attached
which cloud the issues
which she wishes
to address.
A passel
of jaded poets condescending;
who sear and cauterise
synapses
of intellect, and
in the
bud,
it’s
vim.
I
don’t
give
a
rat’s tail anymore.
Copyright © Suzette Richards | Year Posted 2019
REPOSTED 11 July 2021 with white space added between the lines.
POET'S NOTE: The expression with reference to a rat that I use in my shaped poem, could perhaps be related to a phrase ‘don't give a dead rat’ from Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884).
‘The Mouse’s Tale’ (which was my inspiration for this concrete shape) is a shaped poem by Lewis Carroll which appears in his novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Though no formal title for the poem is given in the text, the chapter title refers to ‘A Long Tale’ and the Mouse introduces it by saying, ‘Mine is a long and sad tale!’ As well as the contribution of typography to illustrate the intended pun in this title, artists later made the intention clear as well.
Copyright ©
Suzette Richards
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