♪☺☻☺♪

Free verse was captured,
confined to a cell
by readers unraptured
in modernist hell.

And there he did languish
while chained to the wall
and desperate in anguish
gave forth a last call:

“Listen and read me—
my muse is the best!
Applaud and then feed me,
your starving guest !

Don’t fall for that beat…
Please ignore their old line.
I’m here. I’m effete.
I’m a modern divine…

I like it in prison
No, really — I’m free!”
(But his lock was awaiting
Your Readership’s key.

For the moderns all lie,
as your readership knows;
Modern poets don’t die—
they just decompose.)