“For once in my life, I want to be a poem” — Anne Winter
If I were a poem
Could my poem be a poet?
If such could be done
Who besides me would know it?
If my poem—as a poet—wrote something new
Could I as a poem be the other poem too?
Or would I simply exist on a document list
Along with other poems that coexist?
(As a poem I would be …)
Living on the edge of poetry forms’ parameters
Running ever changing rapids of trochees and iambs
Line dancing varied rhythms of iambic pentameters
da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM ad infinitum
Dancing two-step footles with the poem of my dreams
Braving slalom ski runs of Klein’s Vase Verse
Climbing lofty peaks of Heroic Crown of Crowns
Then doing it all over again in reverse
(I do have a poetic license you know …)
I think of such thoughts from time to time
When my muse is confused and obtuse
Especially when finding it hard to rhyme
My head flooded with thoughts most abstruse
What would it take for me to be a poem
Vice versa my poem to be poet?
The very next time my muse starts to roam
I’ll try to find out—don’t you know it!
© 2025 Mark Toney
Light verse. © 2025 Mark Toney. Inspiration for this flight of fancy was “Poems and Poets” by poet Anne Winter. A Footle is a two-line, two-syllable trochaic monometer poem with an integral title suitable for light, witty, pertinent, topical verse. Klein’s Vase Verse is a copyrighted poetry form created by Suzette Richards. (2025) An Heroic Crown of Crowns is a collection of fourteen heroic crowns (of sonnets) linked together with the final, or fifteenth, being comprised of the last sonnet of each of the fourteen to become a heroic crown of master sonnets.” (Mind Blown!?!) Remember, too much iambic pentameter can bring on the medical examiner!