Joe Pacheco

An April Fool was I for poetry,

For jests and tricks and play with irony,

Fooling the Muse with rhyme tomfoolery –

Every verse footloose and every fancy free.

Until a world too wise and wide for me

Turned my fool’s errand into odyssey

To roam as far as my poet’s eye could see

Horizons glowing with discovery.

No fool am I now for poetry,

For mindless myth and made-up history,

The “cruelest month” now kind as kind can be,

And poetry’s no longer a fool for me.