Sonnets

This week's creative writing assignment was to write a sonnet. I'd never written a sonnet before but having learned the basic rules, it's not hard to see why. The are a lot of rules! I don't write much poetry to begin with so trying to conform to all those rules was a challenge.

While I was trying to write my first sonnet, a second one rudely interrupted and insisted on coming out first. So here they are, in order of their birth (but reverse order of conception).

Sonnet Lament

These sonnet rules do cause the mind to rage
Time ticks away, the deadline doth approach
Though inspiration shines upon the page
The lines resist all efforts to be coached
into neat rhythms tied up with a bow
encased in fourteen lines measured in fives
There must be well kept tricks that I don't know
which give eternity to poet's lives
That Shakespeare makes a student's life pure hell
Examples lofty in their faultless prime
Just three more lines before the sounding bell
At least I'll fin'lly turn one in on time!
In time and hist'rys dimming light shall fade
This poem and (a hopef'lly) passing grade

For Jess

My restless youth was full of lonely years.
Love's sweet caress was ever far from shore.
Watched friends aglow but hid my bitter tears,
that fell atop a barren desert floor.
Through modern web I cast my spid'ry eye,
you lured through the promise of like minds.
At rink's edge did I see you standing by,*
and rolled into your arms through fate's designs.
Like parted souls rejoined we made our vow,
through sickness, health, in happy and in sad,
Long wait forgotten in the here and now,
your presence wipes away all but the glad.
Though in the law, we be not legal wives,
Your best friend I remain, for all our lives.


*Yes, we met online and then at roller skating rink