Canto 1

And Bathsheba did open up her shop
For business and running repairs although
Her long distant cousin covered and festooned
With flowers of the sun and yellow type
All glowing in their apparent goldness with
Petals and such soft and fragrant like exotic
And erotic in brackets oh no cross out that bit
It might upset the audience and we can’t have that
Now can we question mark now there’s a thought
And what about the rest of the punctuation now
There’s a very long word with so many syllables
And plenty to rhyme with but nothing literary or
Substantial or great and dense such as Dylan Thomas
With all those words sounding thoughtful and thunderous
Or Sylvia Plath god bless her although even the deity
Himself would be loath to upset her above all
Poets female or male or somewhere in between
And the digression semantic and melancholic at once
Spat out all manner of manna from and to tops and
Bottoms and like Plath and Thomas at times cared not
For meaning and sense when so much of it
Was merely or mostly about words and sounds when
Really the common men and women and bores thought
It might possibly be best if it could possibly
Suggest facts and feelings in terms of situations and
Real life not Persian carpets woven with myths
Too distant for real folk to know
Let alone understand and that
Dear reader is all I have
To say on the matter amen