License Rescinded

According to Carl Sandburg, "Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance." Ask Thomas Gray, and you'll find that, "Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn."

One assumes that such philosophies have moved pen to page to produce

Do you believe in always,the wind
said to the rain
I am too busy with
my flowers to believe,the rain answered

and

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

and

If suddenly you do not exist,
if suddenly you no longer live,
I shall live on.

I do not dare,
I do not dare to write it,
if you die.

I shall live on.

Arguably, worth writing down.

I don't even like poetry (much), but I do like words to be arranged such that my brain doesn't feel compelled buy a pair of dark sunglasses, hitchhike its way down to my spleen and enter the Witness Protection Program. Why, then, do I find myself entrenched in a world in which "my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard" passes for fine balladry?

It seems an unnecessary cruelty.