It’s senseless stuff I write; I know it!
(Don’t be so quick though to agree)
It seems I’ll no more be a poet;
some other course is set for me.
It’s for the youthful, starry creatures:
poetry’s sweet sacred song.
Poets past it, just like preachers
to the desk drawer they belong.
I never did pen for a living;
I have a day job; make that two!
If critics had been more forgiving,
if they had taken kinder view.
I’d rise today with birdsong singing,
reel off my rhymes, would not relent
to sound of critics’ church bells ringing
reminding me I should repent!