A Poets Hope Poem by Keith Oldrey

How we long to reach the shelf
Currently held by the poetic wealth
Shelley, Keates. Byron & Poe
Amongst those names we’d like to go

Love and description
A verbal prescription
Cured by Heaney, McGeogh & Cope
We try so hard & pray & hope.

Rhymes may come & we fear
We can never compete with Shakespeare
Yet with couplet descriptions, we can
Compete with Milligan & Betjeman

What is the magic potion
Leading to the fame of Alex Motion
How do the stanzas of Ted Hughes
Continue to sell and top the news

Suicide cannot be the path
Followed by Dylan & Plath
Whilst Hardy, Frost, Cummins and Kipling
Please the eye and set things rippling

So we continue to goad
The brain to produce an ode
That will sear the page
To last an age
Then gather dust upon the shelf