Poets with Problems

Congress has outlawed rhyming because it puts too much pressure on kids. Free verse has replaced it. Poets are shocked. This will put many of them on the unemployment line. Many may try in desperation to write prose. Open mikes will consist of pitchy singers and bad comics. The thrill of rhyming will be forever lost.
A future full of despondent poets sprawled on sidewalks and in alleys, drunk, stoned, useless, is quite possible.
Of course they can resort to flash fiction. God help us.
What we cannot understand is how Congress can ban rhyming and still allow the semi-colon?
If Republicans get elected maybe this law will be repealed.
I would love to end this with a rhyme, but I value my freedom.

Poets on the Roof

We had a meeting about the poets on our roof. We had no idea how they got up there. This is our apartment building and they had no business ruining our quiet with shouting and arguments. Maybe they were just loud readers, but that's not the point. Trespassers can not be tolerated.
Sometimes one will stand at the edge and toss down poems. Egoists. Just creating more paper trash.They order pizza and the delivery guy keeps ringing my bell late at night. He has to find his way up there without dropping the pizza and then curses loudly on the way out because the cheap bastards never tip.
I was elected to speak to them. I somehow found their secret stairs to the roof and when I opened the trap door I was confronted by raggedy, wild looking men and women who demanded to know if I was a poet. I told them I delivered mail and had to get up early. One raised his cane and I thought he'd strike me, but he began ranting in his stentorian voice. I had no idea what he was talking about. I threatened legal action and they laughed. No one arrests poets, I was informed.
We finally reached a compromise. No loud arguments, no late night pizza deliveries, and no dancing. I just threw that one in. Only haiku poets dance, I was told.
I wished they'd find some basement, but they are all infested with musicians.
I need to stop here. My drum circle is meeting on the lawn.

Riding the Last Mile

I should have said I was an essayist, not a poet. Now look at me. On a packed train headed to Alaska with hundreds of other poets. They say Alaska is pretty at certain times. At least we're still in America.
Our wonderful Congress decided poets were writing too many depressing poems leading to mass suicides. We had to go en mass.
I can't sleep. Rumor has it these trains are leaving every half hour. Eliminate the messenger. We must be close by now. The last mile is always the longest.
I can't believe we get shipped out and they let acoustic folk singers stay. No one is more depressing than that group.
None of us feel like reciting poetry. I tried when we first boarded and was shouted down. If we reject our essence, what does that make us? What happens to our identity? Will our kids grow up hating us? I
 pray they have burgers and fries up here. I don't like fish, except talapia. Maybe I can write a poem about that. What rhymes with talapia?
I enjoy being on topaya?