Brian Bilston: Poem

These are tough times for poets.
With the re-introduction of rationing,

many poets are having to live on as little as five similes

and four ounces of metaphor per week.

Haikus have been reduced to twelve syllables.

Brexit has led to a shortage of French villanelles

and Dicilian octaves, while elegy prices

are set to increase by 50 per cent this winter.

Some poets have been forced to burn

their sonnets simply to stay warm;

many can no longer afford to give their poems

more imaginative titles.

And so, think of the poor poets, shivering

in their cedar-clad writing cabins,

wondering where their next rhyme will come from -

and should you have any spare iambs,

odd odes or spent pentameters,

rusting tin cantos or throwaway lines,

please donate them to a Word Bank near you.

Credit card payments will also be accepted at this time.


(on 8th January, 1940, food rationing was introduced in Britain)