Why do all these trochee poems
feel so primal, taste like rhythm?
Why the writer’s forward motion
to the meter, just as given?
Poe and Henry (Hiawatha)
Chug like drumbeats through their verses;
And the Middle-Ages’ Latin
rhyming out in obscure curses.
Not the I-amb do we hear there,
not the subtle Shakespeare sonnet,
Rather, banging forceful accent
With percussive mouth-shapes on it.
Rise, o trochee loving writers!
Readers, rise in rapt attention,
Heeding not the snobbish precepts
English teachers deign to mention.
ONE and TWO shall be our motto,
ONE and TWO we read and write.
Music of our mother language,
nourishment in black and white.
