Young Writers Society

Several Lines of Iambic Pentameter (Not a Sonnet) to Xanthan_Gum
By Elizabeth Mathers
3-15-06
Merry Ides of March!

Warning: This is not a sonnet, this is just several lines of iambic pentameter, that happens to be dedicated to xanthan_gum, which don't rhyme and are sort of ranty, like most of my latest works. Enjoy!

So, one iamb equals two syllables,
one line equals around five iambs or so.
Yet one shocked poet equals confusion
and another poet equals Xanthan Gum

Care to tell me how this works out? For you –
poetry seems to come like birth, like death.
You challenged the natural order of poetry,
of creation, of metaphors and analogies

Here I sit, dumbfounded, by such genius,
by such loveliness. The song from your lyrics:
the song cannot be remixed or remade.
How can I be a new-aged Shakespeare like you?

How can I tame the words, like you, to flow
gently, like a river to the poet’s soul
and bring out the meaning in every couplet
just to be like you. That isn’t a sin.

O’, xanthan_gum! Teach me, as the student
for I am willing to learn of your ways!