This is Why You Don’t Workshop with Ernest Hemingway.

He keeps bitching ‘bout my atrocious alliteration
Fuck you, I tell him and then I show
Him my cajones. He’s not impressed.
He says my rhyme and meter are mediocre
That I have no sense of adventure
Or heart. He calls me “girlie” and says something
Else equally sexist. I light a cigar for him
And ask him what to do about my last stanza.
“What would you do?” I ask him and then
Kiss his bearded cheek.

He’s a sucker for a feeble “girlie.”
He says to blow it all to hell and
Stop before it all gets to be too much.
With a flask of Jack in his Dungarees
And a shotgun in hand, he made it sound
Like I had nothing to work with.
Wildly weak with lacking alliteration,
My own flask of Jack was nearly
Empty before I called it quits.
Only then did he cut me some slack.
And I, being the affable girlie I am,
Took it whole-heartedly.