Words Poetic (Dueling Duet) Poem by William F Dougherty

To be sung to the tune of Cole Porter's 'You're the Top.'

(She)
For words poetic I'm sympathetic—
Bardolatry leaves a woman slack—
But Mr. Literatus, your bronchial afflatus
Sounds like the heavy wheezing of a hack.
You billet-doux me with such Gitchee Gumee,
It's hard to tell a blurring from a blot;
I'll mince no words pretending—
You pain my feminine ending,
So listen, mister, this is what you're not...

You're no Keats; you're no Percy Shelley,
Your iambic beats wobble like jelly;
You're no laureate soul, no Robert Lowell
Or Kinnell —
You're no elegant Hecht, no existential Brecht,
You're... caramel!


(He)
Such words poetic are so pathetic
I hesitate to answer you in kind,
But Lady Literatus, please check your apparatus,
I think your assonance is misaligned:
Your doggerel's italic (Poor microcephalic!) ,
Your rhyming slurs the verse of womankind;
I know what's got your back up,
For lady, you don't stack up—
Just flipping through anthologies, I find...

You're no Plath; you're no Margie Piercy,
You're all wrath, like your sister Circe;
You're no laureate soul, no Amy Lowell,
No Rich—
You're no Mew by Wylie;
You're Song shows slyly
You're... an itch!

(She)
You're no Yeats; you're no Thomas Stearns,
Nothing like Tate's or Robbie Burns;
No Dante Rossetti, no Ferlinghetti,
No Vaughan—
You're no Van Doren, or Robert Penn Warren,
You're... a yawn!

(He)
You're no Brooks, no syllabic Moore,
Your poesy crooks stiff as semaphore;
You're no jot or tittle to Hilda Doolittle,
Even Jong—
You're no Louise Bogan; you clone of a slogan,
You're... a gong!

(She)
You're no Donne; you're— Rod McKuen;
You lack a pun to derring-do in,
You're not a scratch in Kenneth Patchen,
Or Kunitz—
No Kingsley Amis, no Heaney (Seamus) ,
You're...You're-the pits!

(He)
You're no Millay; you're Miles from Bishop,
You'd tax Roget to get that fish up;
You don't Sitwell in Sapphic; your geriatric
Meters doze—
Not a Spark of Rukeyser, you tranquilizer,
You're...You're- prose!