The Midnight Ride of Scrawl Revere
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
If what you want is poetry that plods
Along with limps like injured horse
Gaits, Henry Wadsworth is for you with clods
Like Will McGonagall whose verse is coarse
As Henry Wadsworth’s crippled rhythm lines,
Their tasteless, unexpected slips and halts,
Truncated bits and bloated ones, designs
Completely lacking, galloping with faults,
Some lines too short, some lines too long, with rhymes
The only thumping clangs, pairings banged,
Hard horseshoe beats, a highwayman’s iron crimes.
The aim was that kids ears must be harangued.
As patriots we really should insist
This shoddy doggerel must be dismissed.
~ Phillip Whidden