A Sonnet for Today

Chris wrote a sonnet the other day and got me thinking about the rules for what is and is not a sonnet, and how they might be broken, bent, or otherwise reinvented. This is a sonnet by Ted Berrigan, which aside from being 12 lines long has little in common with the Shakespearean model. Berrigan was actually born in our very own Providence, and later became associated with the New York School of poetry. Here's the Wikipedia article on him if you'd like to know more.

SONNET 34

Time flies by like a great whale
And I find my hand grows stale at the throttle
Of my many faceted and fake appearance
Who bucks and spouts by detour under the sheets
Hollow portals of solid appearance
Movies are poems, a holy bible, the great mother to us
People go by in the fragrant day
Accelerate softly my blood
But blood is still blood and tall as a mountain blood
Behind me green rubber grows, feet walk
In wet water, and dusty heads grow wide
Padré, Father, or fat old man, as you will,
I am afraid to succeed, afraid to fail,
Tell me now, again, who I am

–Ted Berrigan