The Battered Ballad of Fezzik and Inigo, or If You Rhyme One More Time, I’ll Make You a Mime By Ken Gosse

The Battered Ballad of Fezzik and Inigo, or 
If You Rhyme One More Time, I’ll Make You a Mime
  
Each word he heard
within his head
must rhyme sublime
’fore it was said
so ears of peers
would hear his tomes—
each verse like terse
rhapsodic poems—
until his still
but perplexed friend
had cursed his worst
to bring an end
to what was but
a painful trill—
as blows a nose
which has a chill—
yet by and by,
though he did try
to crop and stop
lines flowing by
’til naught a thought
but came to mind:
to tend his end
would be most kind.
  
Dear friend, pretend
he wasn’t bad,
but that your chat
just drove him mad:
he heard each word
with bated breath—
in truth, forsooth,
he longed for death—
and though we know
but wouldn’t blame
his urge to purge
your very name
from thought, which ought
to bring relief,
your rhymes at times
came like a thief
to steal the zeal
which he would need—
conceal his steel,
not do the deed—
your strength at length
came to his heart
by vast lambaste
of rhymely art. 

Ken Gosse generally writes short, rhymed verse using whimsy and humor in traditional meters. First published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, since then in The Offbeat, Pure Slush, Parody, Home Planet News Online, Sparks of Calliope and others. Raised in the Chicago, Illinois, suburbs, now retired, he and his wife have lived in Mesa, AZ, over twenty years.