Having ne'er before a sonnet written
Ambition, laughing, tries his hand at it, then
Casting round for subject worthy inking
Sits in silence desperately thinking.
Of what shall he then odes and verses write,
Which has not been so overwrought and trite?
Then lo, there dawns amidst the mist a slight
Idea, part formed, still vague in distant sight.
Of sonnet's rigid form e'er gravely twinkling
modern free verse offers but an inkling;
rhyme and meter lately so sore smitten,
by their own teeth will be more deeply bitten.
In metered rhyme to metered rhyme decry:
A clumsy youthful epigram, yet sly.
~ c. 1995