Imbecile Like Me Poem by Margaret Alice Second

Love it when kind people tell the uninformed like me
their definition of a poem and poetry, how outraged
they feel when they come across accounts of small
time events which I force on those who innocently
wander the sacred portals of real poetry

Knowing such highly gifted and perfectly informed
critics are around makes all feel safe, they carry the
banner of rules and regulations, metre, rhythm and
rhyme, we can all sleep safe while these Sherlock
Holmian custodians of literary device and charm

Sleuth a Scotland Yard for us; making us follow the
classical poetry of Ovid and Vergil and seeking to
promote the Italian sonnet, to be repeated in just
one way; although it is impossible for an imbecile
like me to improve, I appreciate their solicitude

I beg them to kindly forgive my maverick effusions
as joie die vivre at being free to do my own thing
when not translating boring source texts, leads me
down the path to literary perdition, free innovation
and enthusiastic improvisation, there is no hope

Of my mending my ways while words are running
untethered and free in my head; I refuse to don the
mind-forgéd manacles William Blake lamented, do
not walk the streets to comment on suffering; but
read little books for little people to uplift my soul…