The art of rhyming

With apologies to Elizabeth Bishop

The art of rhyming

The art of rhyming

with apologies to Elizabeth Bishop

The art of rhyming isn’t hard to master;
so many words seem filled with the intent
to rhyme that verse is no disaster.

Rhyme more words every day. Accept the fluster
of villanelles, pantoums (days badly spent).
The art of rhyming isn’t hard to master.

Then practice rhyming farther, rhyming faster:
places, and names, the legal document
you drafted. None of these will bring disaster.

I once rhymed ‘watch’ with ‘botch’: look how my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved sonnets went!
The art of rhyming isn’t hard to master.

I rhymed two men with ‘then’. And, vaster,
the tent we camped in with a ‘continent.’
I bungled, but it wasn’t a disaster.

Even rhyming ‘plaster’ with ‘imposter’
it seems I can’t go wrong! It’s evident
the art of rhyming’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (rhyme it!) like disaster.