Learning To Flow?
Just write a line outright and stop.
Then shorten it up again.
Then go back up and match the top
so it closes with cadenced end.
Then it’s a matter of rinse and repeat
and changing the words around.
To write a poem with structured beat
just plagiarize natural sound.
Just write the words the way they talk
whenever they speak out loud.
They’ll hear it and their jaws will drop
as you impress some crowd.
Read your stanzas out loud as well
and watch the accents, guys!
A word may have two syllables but
one is primarily emphasized!
Take a stanza that really soars,
(like one from Byron or Poe,)
and write a stanza wholly yours
and duplicate their flow!
They were thieves the same as our
contemporaries go.
(Everyone steals from music or
at least takes out a loan.)
Once you’ve changed the words around
enough to find their groove
you’ll have the freedom, and the ground
to stand upon to move
and then you’ll start to summon sound
that time will not reprove,
(and drop some near-rhymes when you find
the confidence and calling to.)
When you learned to draw
you traced the lines,
and no one called it stealing
or seemed to mind.
One day you won’t count syllables
when you take out your pen,
and rhythm will flow inside of you
(as music is meant to befriend.)
You’ll start to wander freely
through your stanzas listening
to words fall into spaces that
expect depositing,
and your job will be simply to -
that is to say all you will do -
is choose an exhibiting!
