The meter I had sought to find, perplexed,
was ripped from books of "verse" that read like prose.
I found it in sheet music, in long rows
of hologramic CDs, in sad wrecks
of long-forgotten volumes undisturbed
half-centuries by archivists, unscanned.
I read their fading numbers, frowned, perturbed
why should their tattered artistry be banned?
I heard the sleigh bells jingles, vampish ads,
the supermodels babble, Seusss books
extolled in major movies, blurbs for abs ...
A few poor thinnish journals crammed in nooks
are all Ive found this late to sell to those
whod classify free verse "expensive prose."
Originally published by The Chariton Review
