Two Thoughts on Rhyme

Sound Principles

These eye-rhymes, like those half-rhymes, are so weak.
Oh, sure, they work hard sometimes, to be fair,
But mostly they just stand to create pique
Among us true verse lovers everywhere.
Choosing to break tradition, like a bough
Lopped off a living tree, no matter who
Insists on aimless foolish choices now,
Has always been a source of endless rue.
Prove doesn’t rhyme with love. I grab the gunwale,
Retching, and hoping that the stale mince pie
Won't come up. But this beats the old dank tunnel
Where I grew up with two ears and one eye.
Since I walked my first sonnet down the aisle,
I’ve counted on sound principles, true style.



Make It Sing

If you rhyme sing with wrong, something had better
Be wrong: that’s the whole point of using rhyme.
When rhyme gets altered, unmade by one letter,
It’s like harsh music swerving out of time.
You need a reason? Dissonance in Mozart?
Sure, with a purpose, and then it resolves.
This half-rhyme with no purpose is a goat’s art:
Meh! Reading it, my good will twists, dissolves.
I hate those eye-rhymes, too, but this is worse,
A tool not used, but squandered, disdained, wasted.
I retch at this ignoble victual. Nurse!
Please help me purge this poison that I’ve tasted!
I tried to make a sonnet, make it sing,
Raise true delight, but something has gone wrong.