Do Not Prescribe Greater Meaning To Me
(after ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’ by Dylan Thomas)
2021
Do not prescribe greater meaning to me,
Poets with their damned witty edge turn dull.
Laugh, laugh at faux-intellectual folly.
Though some men snicker at folks like Rupi,
Their milk and honeyed words don’t even lull,
Do not prescribe greater meaning to me.
Snide men, Shakespeare dilettantes fail to see
Their summer’s day rendered completely null.
Laugh, laugh at faux-intellectual folly.
Wilde men caught Dorian and set him free,
Over his so-called Grey morals they mull.
Do not prescribe greater meaning to me.
Grave men with deadlines, a Plath devotee
Driving Ariel font ideas through my skull.
Laugh, laugh at faux-intellectual folly.
And you, my reader, this I guarantee,
Your assonance moans like a mournful gull.
Do not prescribe greater meaning to me,
Laugh, laugh at faux-intellectual folly.