Dan Williams

Unrepentant Ventriloquist

There once was an unrepentant ventriloquist;

cursing others was a pertinent thrill of his.

Insults he would frequently throw,

in a voice he thought no one would know,

till some percentage of the insulted had their fill of this.

 

He undeniably thought of himself as recognizable poet;

had his own horn, did not hesitate to blow it.

His rhymes were uniformly unremarkable,

but he was ever quite sure they were marketable;

his speeding ego had no brakes to slow it.

 

So he made it seem like electrons did the talking

in a form of electrical ventriloquist stalking.

He ignored every form of reflection

that might accidentally detect him;

shoes last forever cause his mouth does the walking.

 

Though his crudeness could be explosive, his vindictive to be feared,

he was singularly colorless and easy to see through.

With avarice so corrosive you would prefer being speared,

but his spelling was atrosish and his phrasing a meatless stew,

a literary softball was all that he could throw.

 

Unpoetic, unrelenting, unrepentant ventriloquist,

with that frequently updated but still obsolete list of his;

thinks cursing is eloquent or clever,

nearly always or almost never,

his own voice admits to not really getting the gist of it.

 

So the personality ventriloquist remains anonymous and impervious

which makes lesser wits and talents somewhat nervious.

If they could learn to throw their words like him

they could be big stars of verse, like him:

they figure him forgettable, but fame has found him nonetheless.