'Listen, now, verse should be as natural <br />As the small tuber that feeds on muck <br />And grows slowly from obtuse soil <br />To the white flower of immortal beauty.' <br /> <br />'Natural, hell! What was it Chaucer <br />Said once about the long toil <br />That goes like blood to the poem's making? <br />Leave it to nature and the verse sprawls, <br />Limp as bindweed, if it break at all <br />Life's iron crust. Man, you must sweat <br />And rhyme your guts taut, if you'd build <br />Your verse a ladder.' <br />'You speak as though <br />No sunlight ever surprised the mind <br />Groping on its cloudy path.' <br /> <br />'Sunlight's a thing that needs a window <br />Before it enter a dark room. <br />Windows don't happen.' <br />So two old poets, <br />Hunched at their beer in the low haze <br />Of an inn parlour, while the talk ran <br />Noisily by them, glib with prose. <br /> <br /> <br />Submitted by Andrew Mayers<br /><br />Ronald Stuart Thomas<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/poetry-for-supper/
