Bad Sonnet Made Me Do It*

I don’t feel too good.
(I wrote a senseless sonnet.)
My mouth hurts, as it would,
since surgeons set upon it

yesterday to wrench
two teeth out in an hour.
(My sonnet has a stench
I really ought to scour

away.) But here I am –
inordinately fine:
that is, I’m on the lam,
refuse to show one sign

of being out of sorts:
an obfuscating renegade
(and expert in such sports
as having now just made

a sonnet that’s so bad
one surely ought to ban it) –
I huddle in my pad
and cut a card to scan it –

it came from someone dear
who knows me very well –
(forgives when I get queer –
and sonnetize from hell):

funny how, in pain,
I seem to rant in rhyme
(my sonnet shows the strain):
at least I’m beating time:

well, no: not really beating it
but falling into trance –
and stirring up and heating it
until it does a dance.

One could go on like this, of course
but one ought to eschew it.
One’s cart is now before one's horse
(bad sonnet made me do it).

.