I'm ******* with Robert Frost
And the guy who wrote Paradise Lost.
I ain't happy with Aristotle,
And especially John, the weird Apostle.
Don't mention, please, Shelley or Keats,
Blake, Byron, or that poser, Yeats.
Each and every one you see,
Lifted their best themes from me.

Don't look aghast,
Don't tsk and titter,
Their thievery's made me
Mean and bitter.

Just because they said it first,
Doesn't mean I find it just.
It doesn't give them ownership
Of my themes and authorship.
I write of Roads, Good and Evil,
God and Satan, love and leaving.
I know I'm internally bleating,
But I can't abide this metric beating.

Although they're  now just dust and bones,
They still don't have the right to own
All the great lines I have sown, like,
The best laid plans of mice and men.
(I thought that up before Robbie Burns).

Let me make this poetically clear;
If I was there, or he were here,
I'd sue the *** of Will Shakespeare.

Mark Twain to Helen Keller


“Oh, dear me, how unspeakably funny and owlishly idiotic and grotesque was that “plagiarism” farce! As if there was much of anything in any human utterance, oral or written, except plagiarism! The kernel, the soul—let us go farther and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances in plagiarism.

For substantially all ideas are second hand, consciously or unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources and daily use by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them any where except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing.”

Mark Twain

My poems may not be all that good
not near as much polish as they should
some of them wither on the vine
but *******
at least they are mine!

Let not rage relieve peace off her duty
That is the mood of a woman when another takes away her beauty
For what is left a shine on the face of iron when it gets rusty
So don't see someone's honouring event as your party
Don't especially with impunity
That's no pay for a person's ingenuity
It's evil coveting someone else's ideas your property
Plagiarism destroys creativity
It is honour stripping activity
Dip your mind into the well of creation and draw out the complexity
Then understand how it is to create
And appreciate how plagiarism makes creativity emaciate
Like a mother hurts when her child is in pain
A creator feels when his efforts are being rendered a vain
Credit he who credit is due
And earn honour for your own efforts too

Don't touch my poetry
Unless you're a plagiarist.
It's infectious.

I've tried to write
So many poems about you
But you're beauty is copyrighted
And I don't believe
In plagiarism

When they look back on me

Let them all swear

He always stole diligently

Oft-times unawares

& If he plucked on your heartstrings

Another man's chords

He only piggybacked to reach higher

I sometimes take words that were first used by others
(I'm About to admit I'm a bit of a crook)
Re-hash and re-use them, and make my own covers-
Stealing little known lines from an eloquent book.

I've stolen from Shakespeare, yanked words off of Yeats,
And pilfered from Plato and Brown;
I've probably swiped stuff off all of the greats,
And many of zero renown.

There's more to be heard in the wise words of Wilde
Or took from a Tennyson line
Or the thinking out loud of an inquisitive child,
Than could spill forth from this pen of mine.

So if I've stolen from you, and perchance have offended,
(Yes- I'm about to steal Shakespeare again)
Just think but this, and all is mended;
Nothing original came from my pen.

Which means that, eventually, all that I've ever done
Will be lost in the shadows of time,
Skipped over, or lost, and simply outdone
By your works original shine.