Heir on Fire

"Heir on Fire" is a (hopefully) amusing villanelle about how I became a "serious poet" at age 14, then destroyed everything I had written when I didn't immediately challenge Shelley and Keats.

Heir on Fire
by Michael R. Burch

I wanted to be Shelley’s heir,
Just fourteen years old, and consumed by desire.
Why wouldn’t my Muse play fair?

I went to work—pale, laden with care:
why wouldn’t the words do as I aspired,
when I wanted to Keats’s heir?

My verse seemed neither here nor there.
How the hell did Sappho tune her lyre?
And why wouldn’t my Muse play fair?

The journals laughed at my childish fare.
Had I bitten off more than eagles dare
when I wanted to be Byron’s heir?

My words lacked Rimbaud’s savoir faire.
My prospects were looking quite dire!
Why wouldn’t my Muse play fair?

At fifteen I committed my poems to the fire,
calling each goddess a liar.
I just wanted to be Shakespeare’s heir.
Why wouldn’t my Muse play fair?