Roger,

Sorry, missed you post. Thanks for the comment. Yes, I can certainly make it work forced when I read it out loud and I think this sort of poem lends itself to a sing-song delivery, so I don't mind so much that it sounds forced / sing song, since it's that kind of poem. I guess the issue is how clunky it sounds to others, and how much I can rely on the reader to impose the rhythm and force the metre onto the line.

Thanks again,

Matt

Lawsuit: Off-Duty Cop Working Wal-Mart Security Accuses Man of Stealing Tomato, Beats Him, Breaks His Leg


AN OLD, FAMILIAR TUNE
(with apologies to George and Ira Gershwin)

You say "to-may-to" and I say "to-mah-to".
I see "a shopper" and you, "desperado".
Bra-vay-do, bra-vah-do.
A guard's not a god. Oh,
Let's call the whole thing awful.

You assume suspects won't have a receipt-o
(Or rights), so you hate and you hit. You're the heat-o.
Your badge lets you beat-o
That lowly mosquito.
Let's call the whole thing awful.

But oh, if we call the whole thing awful,
Then we must act.
And oh, if we ever act,
The deck might come unstacked.

Respect's slow to earn; instant fear has its uses.
To-may-to, to-mah-to, and blood are the juices
that flow like excuses
for power abuses.
Better call it just a one-off.
Let's call it just a one-off.

Oh, Noah!
 

Now, in this age of bloggers and tweeters,
Carol Ann Duffy is writing on meters.
(N.B., USA, not on scansion or stress
As your Webster-lite spelling might lead you to guess.)

Hmm . . . still can't compete with E.J. Thribb (17 and a half cubic feet) on the same topic in the current Private Eye.

The Polarities of American Aesthetics Made Flesh?

News to me!

Pummeling Poets

Stevens: The trouble with you, Robert, is that you write about subjects.

Frost: The trouble with you, Wallace, is that you write about bric-a-brac.


Poetry vs Prose

Stevens impugns Hemingway’s manhood.

Hemingway pugnaciously flattens Stevens.


Gleaned from the May 2, 2016 New Yorker review by Peter Schjeldahl of Paul Mariani's The Whole Harmonium: The Life of Wallace Stevens.

Oh, dear, what can the matter be?
We found a bomb in the lavat'ry
Thought it was a terrorist strategy
Gave us a terrible scare...

(Tune Trad.)

Oh, dear, what can the matter be?
Three transgenders found in a lavatory.
“This isn’t right”, says ex-candidate Huckabee;
“God wouldn’t want them in there!”

Removed for further tinkering.

~~tc

Fly Fishing Only
 

The Maine Warden Service reminds fishermen that anglers using bait in waters designated as "Fly Fishing Only" are subject to legal sanctions- news item.

"Fly Fishing Only" means, in simple terms,
You'll pay a fine if you're caught using worms.

Yale Idiots!
 

Yale students object to Chaucer courses!


http://www.newsmax.com/RichLowry/eng.../07/id/732665/


What eyleth yow to grucche thus and grone?
Is it for ye wolde have my queynte alone?
Wy, taak it all! Lo, have it every deel!
Peter! I shrewe yow, but ye love it weel;
For if I wolde selle my bele chose,
I koude walke as fresh as is a rose….

Chaucer, from “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue”

L 2 queynte: pudendum
L 5 selle: sell, barter; perhaps a pun on “seal”?
L 5 bele chose: pudendum


A Romance of Her Rose

After Chaucer, “The Wife of Bath”

Must men grouch and groan for a virgin wife?
One they would make their quaint red rose for life?
Try to recall, from Chaucer’s merry tale,
Those marriage words immortal that prevail,
When all there is of love has come and gone,
Said freely by the good Dame Alisoun,
A wife who in five marriages had done,
While not de facto intacto for each one,
Kept her loving thing so fresh and rosy,
It seemed resealed and sold as unbloomed posy.

I think you may be missing a trick with "queynte". I think you need to find a three-syllable semi-obscenity that parallels the C-word. Maybe I shouldn't think so much. Or at all.