They tell me not to use clichés
No longer fresh as daisies;
I've reached the end of all my rope,
Blank paper drives me crazy.

They tell me to forego abstracts
Like truth and mad and sappy;
Now I'm confused, despise the rules
That've never made me happy.

"Show, don't tell!" - they order well
When they can master language;
I only say, if I had my way,
I'd use all emotions and adages.

They say it hurts a poem so
When it is forced to rhyme,
That it forces awkward wording; I say
Meaning shows in half the time.

I read of hope and truth and beauty
By Keats, Dickinson and Shelley;
Great minds think alike, do they not?
None of their poems are smelly.