Occasional Doggerel

Select a slender volume of contemporary verse,
A chapbook, zine or what is surely worse,
Screw up your courage for a slam or open “mic,”
And contemplate the spectacle of Erato out on strike.
The lyric’s usurpation by environmental rant
And the introspections of an insensate sensitive plant
By the spawn of good, gray Walt, leave us fading hope.
As for me, I’ll stick to Horace, Catullus, Swift and Pope.