Would-be poet, get thee hence!

I may trouble many with this post.
But that's small cause to yield the ghost.
A dead ear turned for months on end
To lots of those I would call a friend.

My ear is dead not deaf, I say,
It seeks to die again each day.
Maimed and killed, a hundred times,
Revived in hope of hearing rhymes.

Revived in vain by fraudulent verse,
Murdered again with a devilish curse.
It seeks for rhyme, it seeks for metre,
A phrase that would inspire St. Peter.

It needs the salt of wisdom and wit
Sprinkled on words that rhyme, that fit.
It yearns for fruity turns of phrase
That sparkle like wine in college days.

But all it's fed is mangled prose
Snorted out through someone's nose,
Devoid of rhyme, bereft of grace,
Masquerading as beauty's face.

Missing commas, misplaced ends
Are uglier when lost by friends.
And every word is friend to me,
So treat them fair, or let them be.

If you'd arrange them to a plan,
Make sure they rhyme, ensure they scan.
The metre is a veil, not shroud,
It should sound right when read out loud.

If these tests fail, perhaps you should
Abandon thoughts of writing good
Poetry, and stay with words
That don't need coralling into herds.

You cannot rhyme? You have no wit.
You cannot scan? You are not fit.
The metre's lost? Ah, woe is me,
What passes these days for poetry!