Flaubert Poem by gershon hepner

The dreary men who chose to quarrel
with Flaubert, novelist,
declared his writings were immoral,
which made them somehat pissed
at him. They thought he should have been
a tad responsible,
and sued him on the legal scene
as indefensible.
They made a charge that Flaubert wrote
descriptions of lewd acts
a gentlemen would never quote
as fictions or as facts,
and brought him to a court of law
which almost brought him down.
He lost the battle, not the war,
against both cap and gown
who weary all creative writers
who novelties create,
the serpents in the grass who bite us
for writing what they hate.
In academe within a grove are
mean men I’m sure that Gustave
disliked far more than Madame Bovar,
but could not shake the dust off.