An Ode to Conservatism

An "Ode" to Conservatism

February 29. 2004


It is a crime, my friend, it is a crime
To wash your tongue of triteness with a  rhyme.
You live and love and speak and breathe in prose
Until the sunless, cloudless repose.

It is a crime, my friend, it is a crime,
So burn the feather lest you reach your prime –
Both Keats and Shelley cheated thirty two,
And young, alas, was Byron dying, too.

So when you love, be careful and bland,
Yet do not rhyme – t’is crime in every land.
Remember Pushkin? – struck with gift and lead;
He loved and dueled, wrote and lifeless bled…

The poet’s flame – extinguish it in time,
For it’s a crime, my friend, indeed a crime.
You know the land: Conservatism it’s called –
To step beyond its borders – sin untold.

Heed well, my friend, you know it’s a crime,
Against Convention – gluttonous a Shrine;
Before you sink in thoughtlessness of slime… -
Go find a pencil, sharpen it and rhyme!