These sonnets gobble down my rhymes and feast
On images and metaphors. They are
Insatiable, these sonnets, not the least
Concerned lest gluttony might come to mar
Their figures in the world today -- lest you,
O modern reader, judge them far too fat --
Like portly men from times when no one knew
Cholesterol could kill you. . .just like that!
Allusions, too, and similes you'll find
Served up, then bolted down as fast as I
Can cook them in the kitchen of my mind:
"More lines, more tropes, more poetry," they cry.
These starving gourmands can not get enough
Of octaves, couplets, sestets, and such stuff.
-- Warren F. O'Rourke, 1995