Gil Colgate: Panegyrics

Panegyrics

The dust jacket blurbs on poetry books
resemble reviews the wine merchant snooks
onto hiscustomers trying to sell
his poetic merlot caved in hell.

“Wry and serious vision of spirits”
“Enriched with a clutch of grape-derived lyrics”
“Seasoned, hard-boiled  comic irony”
“Scented with deep tones  of rhyming raspberry”

“Overlaid with messages vibrating duly”
“Sincere with flattery,  compromised truly”
 
The merchant can’t tell poetry from
viniferous residue,
But blurbs do help sell – he knows that is true.

Which proves a little knowledge is
a dangerous thing
And like Pope you must drink deep from the
 Pierian spring.

But if by so drinking you find yourself slung
Into the unromantic poetic equivalent of dung
Remember in this world there is nothing worse
(Even though you may be adverse to bad verse)
Than passing through life, without some light verse.

Gil Colgate was a New Yorker who happily exchanged New York winters for Oaxaca. His book “Reluctant Poet” is available from Estancia Fraternidad to which he donates all proceeds. His latest book, Committing Poet, is available at Amazon.com.