The sofa can't be blamed for this (Month of Poetry #19)

A simple and inexpensive way
to tune a poet’s strings?
Tell her that a verse a day’s
the easiest of things.

We poets had no full-time staff,
we had no secret agents,
worthy of note, worthy of chaff,
we star in our own pageants.

And so I too had fallen prey
to the mind warp oh so pretty,
rather than just write, I say:
I’ll call up half the city!

I’ll offer poems, freshly cut
from words placed in my hands.
The dragon does not beg, slut,
but places her demands.

Have you got as much guts
as you’ve got gall and phrases?
I will not give you ifs or buts,
just put them in their places.

I’m going to fail, I’m going to suck
I happily agree.
On ‘Hotel Buggiato’ I’m stuck
(you get this verse for free)

I’ll fudge a few bad ditties,
I’ll badly rhyme my lies,
there’s no need to get shitty,
it’s not the Nobel Prize.

So if my mother is a fish,
it’s bad metaphor: I know it.
The sofa can’t be blamed for this,
the fault lies in the poet.

_______________________________________________

Today's poem is based on suggestions from seven people:


@matchtrick: 'The dragon does not beg, slut' (George Martin, Game Of Thrones)
@scooter_lass: 'have you got as much guts as you've got gall?' (Hammett, Red Harvest)
@timsterne: ‘my mother is a fish’ (William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying)
@ernmalleyscat: ‘I too had fallen prey to the mind warp’ (Randall Lane, The Zeroes)
@lalscotton: ‘we had no secret agents worthy of note’ (Dennis Wheatley, The Deception Planners)
@dogpossum: 'simple and inexpensive way to tune' (Kalaukele pamphlet)
@ChanletB: ‘Hotel Buggiato’ (Lili Wilkinson, A Pocket Full of Eyes)

Er, my sincere apologies.

I'm very very tired and there's a three year old who's been screaming "I WANT TO SING A SONG! I WANT A STORY! I WANT A DRINK OF WATER! I WANT TO WAKE UP! I WANT TO WAKE UP!" from his cot for the past hour.

I think it did something to my brain.