Friday Poem: Infestation

Infestation

I warned you about the danger
of letting poems into the house.

Now we have verse everywhere,
sonnets asleep in the kitchen
and bawdy ballads in the bedrooms.

We have cupboards filled with couplets
and villanelles on the veranda.

At night, I hear triolets
scratching together in the walls,
and I found enjambment curled up
asleep in my pyjamas.

There are rhymes without reason
all over this household,
and anapaests in the attic.

There are wild stanzas
performing free verse on the lawn
right in front of the neighbours.

There's an epic hogging the bathroom
and the gasman can't read the metaphor
all the sestinas blocking up the cellar.

The laundry basket is overflowing
with a load of dirty limericks.

Yesterday, I tripped over
a haiku in the hallway.
There's alliteration all around us
It's a pain in the assonance.

Now, we are going to have to call
for a professional prosodist
and have the whole house scanned.

I warned you about the danger
of letting poems into the house.

 

(Published Envoi 131 February 2002)