No Trespassing

No Trespassing

            for Billie Collins and friends.

No trespassing say the signs, can't you read?

Only poets are allowed to proceed.

Only wordsmiths are allowed at the forge

Sharpened pencils, broken hearts, ahead we forge.

Oh an English degree might pave the way

But no self-publishing, that's ego not talent on display.

The laureates are circling their wagon

Their lariats roping in the false bragging

Or should we say they are circling their carts

Like bullies on the block to stop false braggarts

Oh the plethora of those amateur self-proclaimed poets

On every corner and soap-box the all-know-its

Who string their lines out in hopeless imitation

Of monument builders who have earned their station,

Let them amuse themselves with maudlin drivel

As long as they confine themselves to the trivial

The big themes are reserved to the awarded,

The noble, the published, the poet laureated.

mcj2014:0729

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