You do your best, the best you can,
and put it down in rhyme and scan
and it's your child, child of your heart
and what the artist says is art,
IS art.
And would you put your child on view
to feel opinions fall on you
about her nose, her eyes her hair
the way she walks, and would you care?
You'd care.
So if you publish your own verse
be ready for critics, or worse
some idiot who is not you
and cannot feel the way you do
to tell you that you're doing it wrong
and that last line is three syllables too long
or rhythm sucks and rhyme is dead
and you are twisted in your head.
Just carry on, for what you do
is art, if 'artist' describes you.
Whatever the critics say
and at the end of any day
you only have to satisfy
who looks out of your mind's eye.