On Writing Poetry

I get it now. The secret of writing,
and writing poetry. I have long wondered
how all those madmen compose verses
so pretty, so tight and heck even rhyming
Now I think I know, for long I’ve pondered -
madmen just write when not in their senses.

That’s that then, but then there is this ‘technique’
For, read poems and you will find, not just rhymes
But also syllables, eight each or ten
a line, that make sense and of passion bespeak.
How, by God, how? I’ve cried out many times
in despair, for answers I sought wise men

Men who could create, men who did create
and strutted their wares like whores do their breasts.
Come look, look, they cried, mine is better than his:
bigger, better, best! But then, that’s the bait
I think, cater to the masses’ requests;
show off, admire back those who admire yours

But then we digress, what we look for now
is not what’s done after or even before
but during… the act of picking some words
and then setting them together like how
pearls are set on a necklace. This I assure
is tough, I’ve even asked a few crazy bards.

Somehow I manage with my nonsense verse
That makes sense to just a few, not many.
I count my syllables, I sing them out
loud, I fit my lines in a small li’l space
sometimes I write the entire verse, plenty
revisions spruce them up, that’s all that’s about.