Discrimination

Discrimination

by Michael R. Burch

The meter I had sought to find, perplexed,

was ripped from books of "verse" that read like prose.

I found it in sheet music, in long rows

of hologramic CDs, in sad wrecks

of long-forgotten volumes undisturbed

half-centuries by archivists, unscanned.

I read their fading numbers, frowned, perturbed --

why should such tattered artistry be banned?

I heard the sleigh bells’ jingles, vampish ads,

the supermodels’ babble, Seuss’s books

extolled in major movies, blurbs for abs ...

A few poor thinnish journals crammed in nooks

are all I’ve found this late to sell to those

who’d classify free verse "expensive prose."

Originally published by The Chariton Review