Song: Get A Grip! Poem by Dave SmithWhite

Gotta get a grip! Be no mere blip,
On fame's near liquid screen.
Gotta get a grip, when envy drips,
And critics vent their spleen.

Gotta get a grip! Can't let them chip
Away at my resolve.
Gotta get a grip! Can't let it slip,
Or the rope might twist and fold.

Wrap it round the wrist; gotta make a fist.
Between two forces, hold.
Gotta get a grip! Can't let it rip,
Or tip the scale worm-holes.

Gotta get a grip! Be cool and hip;
In the pools where sharks conspire.
Gotta get a grip, and bend or dip
My lid to arch desire.

Gotta take a chance, let good luck dance,
In the kabuki of lost souls.
If it ain't romance, then there's no advance,
No score or winning goals.

Gotta get a grip! Can't let them nip
At ambition's fleeter heels.
Gotta get a grip! Can't let them clip
The wings my hope reveals.

Gotta get a grip! Can't let them snip
Tall poppies from their base.
Gotta get a grip, and pay no lip,
But show my human face.

Straining knot and cinch, I cannot give an inch.
No master shall I serve.
In the clinch I squinch, but must not flinch,
Or deign the pained pinched nerve.

Gotta get a grip! And crack the whip;
Exert a pert control.
Gotta get a grip, with a ready quip,
To invert my tragic role.

Gotta make it taut; let my weight support,
At the fulcrum of my ode.
A poet short, of one and nought,
Binds yet by binary code.

Gotta get a grip! The existential trip;
Alive, we're cowed and hazed.
Gotta get a grip, or this comic-strip's
A play of life: erased.

Gotta make it smart; load up my cart,
And walk the silken road.
To talk the part, and still the heart,
To make great art, the goad.

Gotta get a grip! And sail that ship,
To dread and final port.
Gotta get a grip! And mint the scrip;
My fee of last resort!