Wuntz Oppenheim

Wuntz Oppenheim was a grad
student I knew who had

a thing against too many
rhymes too closely packed. "Any

poem with rhymes that cluster more
closely than two every four

lines, one every five or six stressed
syllables, sounds silly." Distressed

by this news and being young,
serious and high-strung

myself at the time, I went
back to my garret and spent

the hours from midnight to dawn
rewriting every wrong

until all my rhymes were faint,
distant, aloof, and constrained.

Twenty-five years on I've forgotten
most of my poems but not that rotten

piece of advice to dull the fun
of every playful thing I'd done.