Robbie Burns Day (The Plagiarist) Poem by Francie Lynch

Robbie Burns Is a Plagiarist
I'm pissed off with Robert Frost
And the guy who wrote 'Paradise Lost.'
I ain't happy with Aristotle,
And especially John, the weird Apostle.
Don't mention, please, Shelley or Keats,
Blake, Byron, or that poser, Yeats.
Each and every one you see,
Lifted their best themes from me.

Don't look aghast,
Don't tsk and titter,
Their thievery's made me
Mean and bitter.

Just because they said it first,
Doesn't mean I find it just.
It doesn't give them ownership
Of my themes and authorship.
I write of Roads, Good and Evil,
God and Satan, love and leaving.
I know I'm internally bleating,
But I can't abide this metric beating.

Although they're now just dust and bones,
They still don't have the right to own
All the great lines I have sown, like,
'The best laid plans of mice and men...'
(I thought that before Robbie Burns) .

Let me make this poetically clear;
If I was there, or he were here,
I'd sue the ass of Will Shakespeare.