Here’s another little sonnet experiment. Let’s try to be super dumb about the rhyme at the end of the line by using the same words over and over—but enjambing some of the lines so that the repetition is less audible and dorky! It strikes me that this has been a poetic goal since the English Renaissance: write a rhyming poem that doesn’t sound dorky. This one here, though, might be one of those “precious” poems. It’s a risk I’m willing to take on this 12th day of NaPoWriMo.
Twelve
When my son was young he hated April
Because his dad was always writing poems,
Every day for thirty days; I hate April,
He’d say. I’d respond, you could write some poems.
Write with me. He was having none of that.
But one year he took to writing fiction
On unlined paper, it went on like that,
A tale of a very evil bad guy, fiction
A kid would pen, and in those lovely moments
I thought, he’ll write. After all, he’ll be a writer.
He turned away from pencils, and his moments
Now are spent with drum sticks. Dad’s the writer.
He’s a drummer I could only dream of being,
A marching snare monster, the center of his being.
michael jarmer 
Well done, Dad! And I have it on pretty good authority that both of these writers are also drummers. But this sonnet — yes, sonnet — is remarkable. Not “precious,” but, OK, I’ll say it, precious. Moving, in the best sense. Actually, in all senses. Not dorky, just real. For all parents and — I’m here to testify — to a nonparent too. Thank you for bringing the sonnet back to unforced emotional dramatic power.
On my aforementioned $2,307 tax dispute, I have a call in to Michael Cohen, but so far, no call back.
Don ________________________________
Thanks, Don! I’ll put in a good word for you with Michael. He’s “fixing” some things for me right now, as we speak.