Two Poems
Steven Kent
The Poet of Comic Persuasion
The poet of comic persuasion
Can sense condescension at times
From oh-so-so “serious” writers
Unversed in both humor and rhymes.
Iambic tetrameter’s dated,
They sniff. Anapestics? Passé!
And limericks? Thank God The New Yorker
Disdains juvenilia today!
Alas, they forget Dorothy Parker
And frankly the great Ogden Nash,
Who said more in two metered couplets
Than those who, when closing, go off on a tangent,
extending the line and then filling whole pages
with angst-laden free balderdash.
- - -
Fancy Cat’s Up
What does he think about, my haughty cat,
While staring out his window by the hour?
I do believe he dreams of royal power –
A Caesar on his throne, and more than that.
No doubt he has a picture in his mind
Of maid and servant waiting ’round the court
To serve his needs, to him alone report,
And never fall a single step behind.
How grand are his delusions, and how high
This Lord imagines his proud self to be
Above the scrum of mere humanity,
While we who feed and shelter him stand by.
- - -
Steven’s notes: “I’m not a cat owner myself, but I’ve spent enough time around them to witness the way they approach life. ‘Fancy Cat’s Up’ is from my second collection, Home at Last. ‘The Poet of Comic Persuasion’ was originally published in Lighten Up Online; the closing line is an homage to Ogden Nash, who might suddenly deviate at the end of a poem from the precise metrical structure he’d employed up to that point. The speaker here voices a particular frustration shared by all of those who take light verse seriously.“
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Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer and musician Kent Burnside (www.kentburnside.com). His work appears in 251, Asses of Parnassus, The Dirigible Balloon, Light, Lighten Up Online, The Lyric, New Verse News, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Philosophy Now, The Pierian, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, Snakeskin, and Well Read. His collections I Tried (And Other Poems, Too) (2023) and Home at Last (2025) are published by Kelsay Books.
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