A Poesy Guide to
A Grandfather's Guide to Poesy

Catching her kvetch thusly, we was keen to teach Kim a trick:
"Incapable of completing my poems am I, though they begin with promise."
We prescribed ye ol' family formula, Ocean-Heaven-Joint-Pun:

"To seek inspiration, seafare," advised we. "Hatch a Miltonian paradise.

Attempt cannabis. Should all fail, cast dignity aside and play on words.
Why couldn't you be a gent? All comely women of circular countenance
Spout perennial male poetry from moles located at midwicket..."
Pensioners' mouths, like air conditioners, only stop for autumn --
Free rolled the pearls of wisdom, and other spherical schemes.

Yet civilly did Kim nod her head and mutter,
"You do know this is my bread and butter",
Check the flow of thoughts said, and utter,
"But, Gramp, isn't that our bread and butter?"
Let her bright pink face to redden but her
Tone was even-keeled: "Bread and butter."
Her trouble wasn't, explained she, a deficit of lyrical themes,
But that she possessed an imagination with neither top nor bottom.
It chirped itself hoarse like a negligent mama cricket's kid cricket,

Spiced everything up and set off smoke alarms, like brown tenants;
Kibitzed, quivered and cooed with flying colours, like crayon birds.

Inheriting her clan's sonnet nose, doggerel ears and ballad eyes,
Inflated she with uncontrollable stanzas every revision -- ere quitting at v7.1.
"Sweet child, there is a fix as surely within your reach as your left palm is,"
We suggested pitifully. "Make your rhyme scheme symmetric."