If I’m allowed to interrupt let it be known I write no couplet.
Indeed, I’m terse, no verse
In my house the only meter is on the wall beside the heater.
A need to formulate a sestine does not spring from my intestine.
No one in my area code has e’re accused me of an ode.
I do admit that once in Kansas I scribbled out some ribald stanzas
But let’s be clear
Rhyme I fear.
Iambs lurk beneath my bed. Quatrains pound upon my door. Keats pursues me with his bloody knife.
At the Hilton, Milton—Oh, I cannot bear to think of it.
Prose, I chose.
BERNARD HOLLAND