A Poet In The Making

I ’d like to write poetry but I don’t know how
to find the right words and make them rhyme.
Should I employ a tutor, an erudite highbrow?
I might manage on my own, at least for a time,
until I find the courage and enough inspiration
to write something worthwhile that isn’t gush.
I must not be a jester, ridiculed by the nation;
I won’t compose odes that will make me blush
but it will prove impossible to imitate the Bard.
I can try to concentrate on poesy that is lyric,
(I’m sure that to achieve that wouldn’t be hard):
a few sonnets, some ballads and a panegyric.
I’d like to think my writing would have taste
and, though written in vernacular, quite posh.
The language could be fruity and not so chaste
but it should not be dismissed as utter tosh.
All that remains to me is to get pen and paper
and begin to let flair and imagination flow;
I am told that I’m too old for this kind of caper
but I will get there if I take it nice and slow.

© Luigi Pagano 2014