A Poetic Fishing License

Is it the poet’s job to preserve yore,
To make up rhymes for Icarus and Thor?
I have never learned to read nor speak
In either ancient Latin or Greek.
And of my knowledge in bygone Old Norse
Can be said it is infinitely worse.

It is my good luck to have translations
Created by the former generations.
And for you, there’s Google to draw upon
When a myth comes from an old pantheon.
Need you know Helios from Apollo
When one is better the rhyme to follow?

Maybe my little secret I’ll tell you --
I fight through reading many poets too.
Greco-Roman, Norse, Chinese, or Bible,
With names so exotically tribal,
Without my ready wikipedia
They go in and out like diarrhea.

So maybe, poets, it isn’t our duty
To create such esoteric beauty.
Forgive the past poets and their old ways
And use the language we use nowadays.
Although, in a century, perhaps two,
They will need to look up what you wrote too.