I once was a poet, rhyming lines,
Tying stanzas, hinting signs,
Finding words for all my dreams
Fitting into metered schemes.

But now the work’s become too hard,
And I’m no longer quite the bard;
My wrestled words that stop or stall,
Sometimes they won’t come out at all.

I wander through iambic feet
And hope my heart won’t lose the beat,
But when my length of line is done,
Arrhythmia has just begun.

I struggle now for every rhyme,
My poetry takes too much time;
Or is it I that wants to quit,
Who cannot find the time for it?