I can write a poem about anything

Be wary of those poets and be careful where their gaze is

‘cos where they look may be the subject for their phrases

Now I’m no exception, I’m a lyrical magpie

I’m gonna grab ideas from whatever I can spy

I write about romance and I write about love

about the earth below me and the sky above

The moon, the stars, the clouds, and the sea

the sunrise or the sunset, it’s all the same to me

Do all the flowers bloom at the start of the spring?

well, I can write a poem about anything

I write about death and I write about birth

and the ecological violence we’ve done to this Earth

I write about injustices and poverty

and about the rich excesses in society

I got verses condemning the obscenities of wealth

I’ve written about sickness and written about health

Do butterflies float, do honey bees sting?

I can write a poem about anything

I write about rebellion and I write about compliance

I write about the tensions between faith and science

I got verses about curses I got lines that make you shiver

I got lines that are sometimes awkward to deliver

I write about obsessions and I write about perversion

those awkward events you don’t include in conversation

Could Fred Astaire dance, could Pavarotti sing?

I can write a poem about anything

My poems cover incidents and accidents and consequence

My poems have coincidence, and diffidence and confidence

My poetry is humorous, my poetry is dark

My verses are ironic and sometimes full of snark

Hopefully, my poetry will make you stop and think

It may not prick your conscience but the truth is in the ink

We recognise each artist by the talents they can bring

and I can write a poem about anything

I write about pop culture and I cover propaganda

You’ll find many famous characters embedded in my stanzas

from Lennon to Lenin, and from Marilyn to Mao

there’s no point being squeamish as I slay the sacred cow

From rock ‘n’ roll music to the movie industry,

from notorious criminals to names from history

When you step into the shower does the telephone ring?

and I can write a poem about anything

Good, bad, indifferent, everyone’s fair game

if they fit into my poem I’ll be dropping their names

No-one’s ever safe, and no character’s taboo

Stick around me long enough I’ll write about you too

‘cos everyone’s a target and if on you the spotlight stops

you may be the next subject of the stanzas that I drop

Just as certainly as Monica married Chandler Bing

Friends, I can write a poem about anything

I write lines about our history and previous events

of battles and of struggles, attacking and defence

The Irish uprising, the American depression

Poems of contrition, or poems of confession

The war of independence and the Russian revolution

If anything we’ve learnt that war is never the solution

I haven’t got a dollar, I’ve never owned a thing

but I can write a poem about anything

I got lines about falsehood, the losers and the winners

I got stanzas for the saintly and poems for the sinners

I write about triumph and I write about despair

I write about anything if it’ll keep you in that chair

I got poems for the lonely and poems for the crowd

my lines can make you humble, or they can make you proud

You may suffer like a pauper, you may live like a king

but I can write a poem about anything

I write them while I’m laughing and I write them while I weep

I can even write the damn things while I’m drifting off to sleep

I can writing them in the bathroom I can write them on the stair

I can write them in the kitchen and just about any other where

When it gets into the blood the infection quickly spreads

‘til the rhythms and the rhymes are running round inside your head

You ask me if I’m crazy, but I really couldn’t care

‘cos it won’t keep me from poetry, it always gets me there

Just like fishes swim in water and birds fly on the wing

Yeah, I can write a poem about anything

Steve Wheeler © 1 March 2021

image by Fredrik Rubensson