NOT THIS

        If now and then I craft some lines of verse
        Unusually sonorous and terse,
        More substantive, insightful, even witty
        Than my more typical diurnal ditty,

        Then I feel briefly that my soul’s come home,
        And what I’ve written counts as a true poem—
        Of course this clearly is not one of those,
        As anyone discerning surely knows.

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