THE FIRST STEP

The most prosaic sonnet that I know
Is this one, since it’s only meant to prove
How easily pentameters can flow
If you just get yourself into the groove.

There’s no big trick to this. The only hitch
Is that at every twentieth syllable
You have to make a rhyme, the choice of which
Is sometimes small, a hat from which you pull

A rabbit! Magic! The trick is to relax.
Don’t sweat the process. Simply trust your Muse
(Whom you respectfully invoke) will Fax
Into your brain the word you’ll want to use.

But once you’ve gained this craft’s facility,
The hard part comes: to make it poetry.

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