For Christopher


A sonnet isn't very hard to write
If all you try to do is make it rhyme
But if you want the rhythm to be tight
The fucker's gonna take a lot of time
The tricky part is DUM dee DUM dee DUM
Not even Shakespeare's sonnets always scan
Not all of them are perfect -- only some
And still we say that Shakespeare is "The Man"
Because it's not enough to follow rules
And DUM dee DUM does not a sonnet make
And it is safe to say that only fools
Would say to break the rules is a mistake
A sonnet cannot be a work of art
Unless, like yours, it's written from the heart