Listen ye bards and you writers of prose
Poets and rhymesters and wearers of hose.
Since our culture's dearth of artists so great.
The State will hire a Poet Laureate.
To travel the state cross forest and hill
Through Vader, Concrete, Yelm and Colville
Teaching young minds the values of verse.
Lest they grow up to write poems far, far worse.
Two summers to write on apples and pears
Two winters to wax 'bout Gregoire the Fair
Two springs to warn man of Global Warming
Two falls to wish for accurate state voting.
Send your work to the State Arts Commission
Mention your gender and piercing of tongue.
Choice of poet is made by committee
For their decisions never turn out...bad.
What funds shall pay for Bill 1279?
A Red Hook, Manny's or Yakima Wine?
One-thousand score bucks plus $10,000 more!
Best pay them well 'cause good poets aren't poor.
Through readings and hearings this bill did go
90 voted yes while five did say no.
The fate of the poet rests with the Guv.
Think you are better? Then you write this bub!
Update:
Guys, you all beat my poor use of meter and verse - except for you jimg - but I think the blind poet "Homer" takes the cake. Your Sound Politics No-Prize is in the mail.
To live on Oly, she don't rate
wasting money on a Poet Laureate
But with the schools' pervasive dumbing
His punctuation will look like e e cummings
Methinks it should read...
"listen ye bastards and writers of prose
Poets and blogsters are wearing sheer hose."
Thanks for wasting more of our tax dollars Oly.
Posted by: Jeffro on April 5, 2007 03:31 PMTax the rich, let the poor eat cake
It's only money, for heaven's sake!
Monorails, Viaducts and bridges that float
What nonsense I say, there are poems to be wrote.
So convene great writers from all over the earth
If foreigners can vote here surely they can pen something of worth
You may speak of global warming with great consequence
But the real emergency is a lack of poetic intelligence
So take it from Representatives Skinner and Lantz
Give Washington poetry a $30,000 dollar advance.
Send the poet laureate all over the state
Pay for it all with increased tax rates.
Students have failed the WASL's science and math
Bring poetry to the classroom, it's the true employment path
No sense in learning basic addition
Poetry will bring about cognition
This is a no brainer, my word-weary friends
Stringing words together brings about the best ends
Haikus, Limericks, Sonnets and Quatrains
If we lived on these there'd be no war or disdain.
Our poets are some clever chaps,
They've got some brains, they ain't no saps.
Surely we can't denigrate
Their latent talent to create,
That is proved beyond debate.
So why do we need a laureate?.
Because Olympia's for it.
There's a poem that says it all!
We don't need no stinking Poet Laureate.
Once on an election dreary, while the pollsters pondered, weary,
Over many a quaint and curious ballot of uncertain source ...