Let me tell you straight

What we have here is a business

We provide poems for some of the world’s biggest corporations

The wealthiest people

You’d think celebrities could do it themselves.

But they don’t.

 

An hour ago we had a rush order

From the head of a car dealership

Who gave us the first two lines.

“There was a young cowboy in Texas

Who dreamed of owning a Lexus.”

Want to finish that?

 

We get a ton of job applications

Not all of them English majors with student loans

We hired a guy who does elegies in church yards

And another who watches woods fill up with snow

And a gal who doesn’t leave her house and never stops – at all.

Boy, can she produce.

 

If you hear America singing

Listen on your own time.

Our clients don’t like downbeat content

Mighty Casey never strikes out

Of that sort of Dramatic Poem that is tragedy–

Avoid.

 

We fired a computer that wrote sestinas

You’d think it would make changes

And show up for meetings every once in a while

Be more of a team player

And take a little criticism

But it didn’t.

 

We turned down this Yukon type

Who couldn’t have cremated Sam McGee

We don’t want anybody raging against the dying of the light.

We said no to this smug little playwright.

Who, when in disgrace in fortune and men’s eyes, thinks of…

Somebody. I forget.

 

We’re a business

That walks in beauty, day and night.

Sometimes for a breath we’ll tarry.

We’re still waiting on a sonnet

Something about love.

How long does it take to count the ways?