From yesterday's On Point.

[randomness]

'Sonnet'

All we need is fourteen lines, well, thirteen now,
and after this one, just a dozen
to launch a little ship on love's storm-tossed seas,
then only ten more left like rows of beans.
How easily it goes unless you get Elizabethan
and insist the iambic bongos must be played
and rhymes positioned at the ends of lines,
one for every station of the cross.
But hang on here while we make the turn
into the final six where all will be resolved,
where longing and heartache will find an end,
where Laura will tell Petrarch to put down his pen,
take off those crazy medieval tights,
blow out the lights, and come at last to bed.

-- Billy Collins

http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2008/04/20080401_b_main.asp

Comments

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

i think collins makes the same point better in "taking off emily dickinson's clothes", but i still think he's basically wrong :)