Poets

can't compete 
with clowns.
When they try to juggle words
they trip over nouns, 
drop their “h’s”
trap their verbs between the pages, 
try to pull rhymes out of a hat, 
adjectives that just fall flat;
sentences that fail to start, 
paragraphs that come apart.

Clowns can tumble, 
clowns can fumble, 
clowns can laugh 
and clowns can grumble.

Everybody 
loves a clown: 
no one laughs
when the poet falls down.

From Rhinestone Rhino and Other Poems. Published by Methuen, 1989.