To A Sonnet

(Written at a sonnet workshop at the Poetry in Aldeburgh Festival, 2016.  This is in the Shakespearean form: 14 lines of iambic pentameters in 3 quatrains with an abab rhyming scheme and a final rhyming couplet containing the ‘volta’ or turnaround.)

A love unknown ’til you chance upon it. …
A love remembered that was once forgot.
‘Twas thus for me when I met you, Sonnet.
Shall I compare thee to ….. I know not what?

A/Bs, A/Bs flow from my pen with ease.
Through Cs and Ds and on to Es and Fs.
Coyly coupled closure entwined in Gs,
Sensuously tremb’ling as curving clefs.

Unstill my quill! Internal rhyme runs thick.
Spell of spelling loosened, oh my lover.
La plume, c’est moi.  I’m biro I am bic.
Stanza stand!  My couplet runneth over.

Free verse my curse now coursing through my vein.
And from quatrain I shall henceforth abstain.
(This fifteenth line will show my true disdain.)