Once upon a time,

I read a little book (I did it just for fun)

About modern poetry and how it should be done.

Imagine my surprise (I really was aghast)

At this books assertion that rhyming poems were just crass!

Well, I must confess, this shook me to the core

Secretly I had concluded that non-rhymers were a bore.

So now it seems my poems require more of me

To reach the exalted standard of Modern Poetry

Not to thwart progress or spit into its eye

I will vow right here and now to give this thing a try.

Mary had a little lamb

Its fleece was white as spam

And everywhere that Mary went

The little lamb was sent

It followed her to school one day

Which was against the rules

It made the children drool

To see a lamb at play.

Having tried this out it seems I’m not designed

To construct a little ditty unless it has been rhymed

You may think me Crass, you may mock my style

You may even assert that rationalisation’s the first refuge of denial

But rationalize I will, and I will tell you this

The guy who wrote that book was talking utter pretentious piss.