Words Like Racing Shells

by Carmen Ruggero

Too many words muddle the poet’s page.
Golden rhymes and meter schemes beguile
the senses–alluring words, but are we sage?
Ethereal concepts one by one we file,

but do we stop to see and sieve the dream,
distinguish between truth and fancies’ will,
hit its value quick to extract what it means,
or do we rhyme our tunes to suit our thrill?

Words, poet, faster than hot racing shells
will penetrate the eye, the heart, and mind,
and destroy all that in the spirit dwells.
Let our rhyme be sage, not deft, but kind.

Too many words, poet; the muse we blame?
Quite short of reason, the argument’s lame.