The Poet Who Failed

There once was a fellow, a fumbly young man,
Who flunked every test since his school days began.
He loved words that twisted, he loved rhymes that curled,
But exams always crushed him, oh what a cruel world!

He scribbled and scrawbled, he tapped and he tapped,
But grammar grew tangled, his spelling was zapped.
The teachers all frowned and they scribbled in red,
“His essays are muddles, his poems half-dead!”

Then one rainy day with a zap and a zine,
He stumbled upon a most marvelous machine.
It shimmered and shuddered, it whizzed with a light,
And promised, “Your poems will sparkle! Just write!”

So he pressed all the buttons, he pulled every knob,
And words poured out grandly—by golly, by gob!
Like laureates lofty with wisdom so wide,
He rode on the shoulders where giants reside.

But deep in his tummy a grumble grew loud,
“I’m cheating!” he muttered, “I trick the whole crowd!
These words are not mine, though I love how they sing,
I’m perched on tall shoulders, not growing my wing.”

Still he chuckled and juggled the lines as they came,
Delighting in rhythm, in rhyme, and in fame.
For even a fraud (with a wink and a grin)
Can stumble on magic—and learn from within.

So if you should meet him, don’t scoff or complain,
For the joy of his poems still dances, remains.
And perhaps, just perhaps, with his magical art,
He’ll learn that true poems must bloom from the heart.