There ought to be a law!
Poets should write about people with breath in their bodies,
And about things men work for and find some use,—
Say, a big greasy dish of ham and eggs,
A shoat with a dozen suckling pigs, foals mulling at the teats,
And men scratching a living out of these hills.
Or, if a poem needs beauty,
What would beat a team of mules with a new harness
Showing a bit of brass, and a brand new green wagon?
Poets are homebodies, house-cats with inky fingers.
A man’s place is to move things and stretch his muscles,
To plow, and hoe, and scythe, to feel dog-tired at night.
If a man feels a poem coming on he ought to fetch an ax
And cut a grandpap oak, popping chips out a foot wide.
That will make him relish his victuals
And swallow his rhymes.