PRETTY ROOMS

                    Before beginning a new verse, I brood
                    While waiting for a good idea to hatch;
                    Until the song begins, this interlude
                    Allows apt words and images to match,
                    Determining the course I’m set upon,
                    Defining the unique parameters
                    Of this new music, waving my baton
                   To keep the beat as sound with sense concurs.
                   If it's a sonnet, then it takes a turn
                   Just past the midway point and heads for home
                   With no space left for any new concern:
                   A sonnet after all’s no epic poem.
                       While sprawling epics make half-acre tombs,
                       It’s said in sonnets we build pretty rooms.

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