Deceitful Little Cherub Poem by Derek R. Audette

I have a poet friend
who assures me
that he could write
poetry from now until the
end of time
and never write a bad poem
'They might not all be great.'
he says 'But, I will never
write
a poor one.'

he claims that his certainty of this
arises from the fact that a
small, portly cherub
came to him in a dream one night
and imparted to him the details
of a rather complex
and seemingly nonsensical
writing formula

I can't say that I agree that
this formula, if followed faithfully
will never produce a poorly written poem
in fact, I happen to know of at least
one
truly terrible poem which strictly
adheres to
this structure

the formula in question is thus:
each poem must begin
simply with the first word being: 'I'
each poem must contain exactly six stanzas
made up of 10,8,8,10,10 and 17 lines
from first stanza to last
and each poem must end
with the last word of the poem,
the only word on the final line,
being: 'someday'

It is a unique sort of formula
to say the least
and if followed to the letter
I am assured that it will never
yield
a bad poem
however, I have tried this formula
on one occasion
and I am not at all happy
with the results

in fact,
I have not yet found
a single example of any poem
written in this style
that I would consider a
good poem
I believe my poet friend
may have been the victim
of a mischievous cherub
who gets its kicks by appearing
to people in dreams
and imparting false information
but, I'll keep looking
and perhaps I will find a good poem,
written in adherence to the cherub's
strange formula
someday