THE SONNET AS AN OLD MAN

The writing of a sonnet is a pain
That hammers words to fit like blocks of stone
And once it's done the poet feels no gain
For rigid form is cause to stand alone

The modern world throws scansion to the side
To join the midden heap of form and rhyme
Though rhyme persists with clumsy stumbling pride
And hurried steps and couplets out of time

Do poems rise like waves bewitched by shallows?
Or does the loom of language weave its cloth
On ragged frames, on oak trees or on gallows
Or are our words borne, wavelike, on the froth?

Thus poetry has rid itself of form
And passion drives the poet through the storm