Three Poems
Steven Kent

Walk in the Light

To make people laugh is the gift of a god,

And should you succeed, well, you’re one lucky sod.

The poet, the playwright, the actor, The Bard

Knows drama is easy, but comedy’s hard.

- - -

Iamb, I Said

For comical verse you can’t top ’er, can’t beat ’er;

No rhythm works better for ho-ho-ho-ho.

Iambic tetrameter: funniest meter,

So why are these lines anapestic? Don’t know.

- - -

Tailgaters

To be or not to be, that is the question.

Existence>Essence: Sartre’s grand suggestion.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

Although that ranger guy’s a creep.

It was the best of times, it was the worst.

Okay, so were we blessed, or were we cursed?

In the room the women come and go

And Pam won’t pay her tab or tip, I know.

He holds him with his glittering eye

(Well, that and half an apple pie).

The fault’s not in our stars, but in ourselves.

Uh, Ma’am, I’m only here to hang some shelves.

Love is patient, love is kind—

Paul did NOT say “love is blind.”

- - -

Steven’s notes: “‘Walk in the Light’ is a declaration of purpose for light verse, a genre which deserves to be taken seriously by both author and reader. ‘Iamb, I Said’ is heartfelt praise for a meter which seems to me particularly well-suited to comic verse. ‘Tailgaters’ employs a peculiar form in which the poet begins with a famous quotation and then answers it in a single line; it's great fun to take these widely known passages and send them off in a whole new direction. All three poems have appeared in Lighten Up Online.”

- - -

Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer and musician Kent Burnside (www.kentburnside.com). His work appears in 251, The Asses of Parnassus, Blue Unicorn, The Dirigible Balloon, The HyperTexts, Light, Lighten Up Online, The Lyric, The New Verse News, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Philosophy Now, The Pierian, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, Snakeskin, Well Met, and Well Read. His collections I Tried (And Other Poems, Too) (2023) and Home at Last (2025) are published by Kelsay Books.

- - -

Hop to…

‘

Three Poems Steven Kent

Three Poems
Steven Kent