Stevieslaw: Holding the line on near rhyme
This week the Mississippi Senate passed the “Church Protection Act,” which allows a church or place of worship to establish an armed security team. It goes on to protect members of the team from civil liability should they happen to shoot someone “committing a felony upon a member of the congregation.” Those planning to visit some church or other in Jackson with the idea of singing “Nearer my god to thee,” off-key should consider themselves forewarned.
Just as the Senate must have asked themselves, “what would Jesus do?” our local poetry group took up the topic of poetry militias this Saturday by asking, “What would Robert Frost do?” By unanimous vote, the group decided to take “the road less traveled,” and petition the Pennsylvania Senate to establish “liability free poetry militias.” In the petition, we pointed out that Barack Hussein Obama is violently opposed to the formation of such a militia, even though he holds no credentials as a poet.
Our club spokesperson, Pinsky Oliver, captured the mood of the club by penning in the petition (to appear in pistolpoempress, 2016), “imperiled by doggerel, near-rhyme and painfully forced enjambment, verse must be free to self-defend.” “And,” he added, “Have you ever seen some of the characters that show up for open mike?”