Last night I heard a Serious Poet assert that he doesn't allow his poetry students to use rhyme because when they ought to be attending to assonance and alliteration and diction and rhythm, they focus instead on chasing the rhyme.
He has a point, but I've never been happier to not be a Serious Poet. We mere doggerelists are free to chase those elusive rhymes wherever they take us, whether they're wafting toward a spider web, skittering across wet pavement, floating through a sludgy sewer, or dancing in the breeze.
Which reminds me: this morning I had the rare pleasure (?) of walking up a campus sidewalk in the rain to the accompaniment of leaf-blowers. Who uses leaf-blowers in the rain? Wet leaves don't waft, skitter, float, or dance, and using a leaf-blower as an overgrown blow-dryer seems an immense waste of energy.
On the other hand, this sounds like just the kind of futile exercise that could promote contemplation. Pop in some earplugs, crank up the noise, and stand there staring into space while absolutely nothing happens--it's the perfect time to chase some rhymes.
Oh the leaf-blowing fellow
sees fall leaves, red and yellow,
as mere blots, hazards, flaws, and impediments:
"Sure, they look nice, but soon
they'll get mooshed and festoon
all our sidewalks with squishy wet sediment."
Oh the leaf-blowing dude
scatters leaves 'til a cloud
spits great raindrops to drip down his nose.
Leaves won't dance, waft, or skitter
when they're wet. Now he's bitter,
telling all who can hear, "This job blows."
(But alas, no one can hear him over the roar of the leaf-blower.)
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