A Tortured Fool.

Right from the outset, from the very start,

the wish to prove a poet filled his heart,

and, lest anything keep him from his fate,

no other calling would he contemplate.

He gave himself so fully to his art

no time he had to play another part,

and since that met not with success,

he made of life a thorough mess.

He planned some great poetic feats

and believed himself as good as Keats;

his spirit too was like a bird's,

but he had a problem finding words.

Though seemingly forever scribbling,

his output was downright piffling,

with endless corrections and deletions,

many fragments, few completions.

Scorned by even his relations,

he bore his worthlessness with patience.

He drank, of course, like many of his kind,

and this further addled his poor mind.

In keeping with when he still drew breath,

his work goes unmentioned since his death,

and it must be fair now to proclaim

that he might have spared himself the pain.

Damn it, who bothers with poetry today?

Old-fashioned nonsense is what I say.

Damn it, who could put up with it,

odes, epics, and the bloody rhyming couplet?