Is this thing switched on?

Um...

Um...

Um. Hi. My name's Tom White, and I'm

The guy who wrote that thing that time.

I figured that its lyric sweet

And thriving verse would make it meet

That I should be your Poet Laureate.

You didn't read it? Oh. I'm sorry: it

Wasn't that good anyway.

I haven't got it here today,

So looks like I'll have to resort

To Plan B (so I'll keep it short).

I wanted to present to you

(If you would kindly hear me through)

Ten reasons you should vote for me –

But I could only think of three.

The first one is my sense of beat,

Or rhythm, or poetic feet;

Though sometimes I might add a foot, and cheat.

The second is my love of rhyme,

Which I might rhyme with “breakfast time”,

Or “anti-crime”, or “caustic lime”.

But never would I rhyme it with my third,

Which is, because my heart-strings have been stirred

And strung to music by Corpuscular love.

What matters the odd half-rhyme, if I strove

To forge a poem fashioned from affection

For every voter voting this election?

With this in mind, I hope to soon extend,

Through verse, the virtues of a well-versed friend –

On which quite sentimental note, I'll end.