Cowboy poetry: Using form: Doc Mehl, ‘Poems Used To Rhyme’
Poems used to rhyme.
In time, the couplets were dispensed.
Incensed, today’s poet rebels from rhyming schemes,
It seems. The writer, newly shedding the shackles of quatrains,
Refrains from even a modicum of lilt.
And built now from unpaired diphthongs,
His songs have lost a measure of glue.
It’s true. No longer does the ear delight
In flight of fancy, in teeter-totter,
Like water on the endless sand, the to-and-fro,
And no, this tide will not abate.
Of late, I find that poems no longer draw me in.
They’re thin.
*****
Doc Mehl writes: “For the last two decades I’ve written rhyming western poetry, and I’ve performed both the poetry and my original western-themed music at cowboy poetry events in the western U.S. and Canada. I’ve recorded two spoken-word CDs of my rhyming poetry, and several CDs of my original music.
I’m not averse to free verse. (OK, I must pause momentarily to savor the rhyme in that sentence.) Still, the author of a free verse poem ought to be able to convincingly answer this question: “Why do you maintain that this work should be categorized as poetry rather than prose?”
In this poem (“Poems Used To Rhyme”), I liked the gamesmanship of sneaking the rhyming word of each “couplet” into the beginning of the second line rather than at the end of the second line. The resulting poem might first appear to be a tongue-in-cheek free verse poem about why rhyme is important. Still, the magic of the closely juxtaposed rhyming words can’t help but rise from the ether.”
‘Poems Used To Rhyme’ was first published in Rattle #85 with a link to audio.
Newly transplanted from Colorado to Black Diamond, Alberta, Al “Doc” Mehl traces his family roots to central Kansas, where his grandfather raised six children on the family homestead. His debut music CD is titled “Asphalt Cowboy,” and his second music CD titled “I’d Rather Be…” was released in 2008. Doc Mehl has also published a CD of original poetry titled “Cowboy Pottery,” and a second spoken-word poetry CD titled “The Great Divide,’ named 2013 “Cowboy Poetry CD of the Year” by both the Western Music Association and the Academy of Western Artists. In 2020, Doc published his first collection of poetry, “Good Medicine: Read Two Poems and Call Me in the Morning.” And in 2022, Doc released two new CDs of music, “West of the 22” and “Tried and True. Doc’s poems and musical lyrics have been featured on the website http://www.CowboyPoetry.com, he has been published in the poetry journal “Rattle,” and he was a first-place silver buckle winner at the National Cowboy Poetry Rodeo in Montrose, Colorado in 2009.
