Submissions

Do not send me poems written in mist!

Remove the words I cannot understand                                             

just leave the ones you need (take out "the clouds")

then fix them down with ink or blood or fist.

Clench the meaning, don’t ever let it slip.

And don’t add extra words to fill the line.

Find a different way of making sense

so what you say comes tripping off your lip.

You shouldn’t need to fiddle about with rhymes

I never really like them anyway

I find that rhyme can just get in the way

and make you say things you don’t mean

And please don’t bring “your heart” into the verse

or tell me that your soul is “yearning still”

or make out that the night is “full of pain”

God!  Suddenly this headache’s getting worse.

If you’ve got something to tell me, tell me straight!

Don’t faff about with spongy epithets;

no symbols, similes or metaphors

just good old English – get it on the plate!

No more than forty lines, too, if you would,

and set them out in Times New Roman Twelve.

Double spaced!  Please – I need some space to write

these helpful little comments for your good.