[edit] To Stevie

Thank you Stevie for
Setting me free.

We've long been accustomed
To all sorts of oddities
Passing for poetry
And some of your bits are mighty odd
Though I always like the ones about God.

Yet somehow it was you, dear Stevie,
Who unchained my pen, taught me
That there are positively no restrictions,
Nothing whatever need cramp our style,
Be it breast-stroke, crawl, overarm
Or even underarm
Like the clumsy lobs of our childhood cricket -
Yes. we can muddle our metaphors,
Mix tenses and senses,
Split Infinitives to infinity,
Forget rhyme, scorn reason,
If all we want to do Is to signal that now and then
We like to be -
Gaily or desperately -
Waving
Though drowning.