Uplift The Soul

When kind people tell uninformed nobodies like me
their definition of a poem and poetry I love it, how
outraged they seem when discovering accounts of
small time events which I force on those innocently
wandering the sacred streets of real poetry

Knowing such highly gifted and perfectly informed
critics are there makes us feel safe, they carry the
banner of rules and regulations, metre, rhyme and
rhythm, we can all sleep easy with such Wardens as
custodians of literary device and charm, to sleuth a

Scotland Yard for us; make us follow the classical
poetry of Ovid and Vergil and seek to promote
the Italian sonnet as replicated diligently in just
one way; although impossible for an imbecile
like me to improve, I appreciate their solicitude

I beg them to kindly forgive my maverick effusions
as joie die vivre, as freedom to do my thing when
not translating source texts that bore, it leads me
down the path to literary perdition, of innovation
and enthusiastic improvisation, there is no hope

Of mending my ways while words are untethered
and running free in my head; I refuse to don the
mind-forged manacles William Blake lamented,
do not walk the streets to comment on suffering;
read little books for little people; uplift the soul