Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Poets

With apologies to Waylon Jennings, not that he needs them.

They’re hard to love and harder to hold.
They’ll give you a poem ‘stead of diamonds or gold,
Ripped off from Auden, or maybe from Yeats
Somethin’ that won’t make them rich as Bill Gates.
As each night fades into a new day
They can’t find a job with their MFA’s.

They think it’s a safe job hanging ’round a faculty lounge.
But when mealtime comes, they find that they have to scrounge.
There isn’t much market our there in the world for sestinas.
They’d make more as a cop, or even a ballerina.
They’re wrong in the head, I think you know that for sure
Their poems are the symptoms, and lettin’ them write is no cure.

Poets git lost when they’re out drivin’ around,
Wanderin’ lonely as old Bill Wordsworth’s cloud.
They takin’ the road less traveled, like Robert Frost
But unlike him they tend to get lost.
They’re anal retentive about every one of their commas,
Freud would have a heyday analyzin’ their mommas.

Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be poets
They’re headed for ruin for sure and both of you know it.
Let ‘em be doctors and lawyers and such,
the schoolin’s as long, but poets don’t make as much.
Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be poets.
‘Cause they’re always at home but they’re always alone.
Even with someone they love.