Instructions: A series of three-line stanzas starting with a tetrameter refrain, a dimeter or trimeter second line, then a tetrameter line rhyming with the refrain. For an optional modulation, signal an altered refrain with the rhyme at the end of one stanza, and then at the end of the poem signal a return to the original refrain with an extra, rhyming line.
Obey the Poem
By Uche Ogbuji
“Obey the poem’s emerging form”
Says Jack Mueller.
But what if it’s a writhing worm?
Obey the poem’s emerging form!
Bathe in its slime.
But what if it’s a wrackful storm?
Obey the poem’s emerging form!
Laugh shelter down.
But what if it’s a stinging swarm?
Obey the poem’s emerging form!
Swell out your pride.
But what if it’s your own unborn?
Obey the poem’s emerging form!
Doze in its caul.
But what if it’s a haunted junction?
Obey the poem’s inspired function!
Kowtow to chance.
But what if it’s extreme unction?
Obey the poem’s inspired function!
Wick up your doom.
You’ve spent your reasons to wax warm.
Obey the poem’s emerging form!
Uche Ogbuji was born in Calabar, Nigeria. He lived, among other places, in Egypt and England before settling near Boulder, Colorado. A computer engineer and entrepreneur by trade, his collection of poetry, Ndewo, Colorado (Aldrich press, 2013) is a Colorado Book Award Winner. His poems, fusing Igbo culture, European Classicism, U.S. Mountain West setting, and Hip-Hop influences, have appeared worldwide. He is editor at Kin Poetry Journal, founding and former editor at The Nervous Breakdown, and runs the @ColoradoPoetry Twitter project. He is also a founding member of the Stanza Massive, a small, DIY-minded group promoting poetry, collaboration and multimedia.
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