(untitled finger exercise)

    To start, you take a middling line
And add a slightly longer one to draw
        The senses and refine

    Its meaning out without a flaw.
Good pace is always worth the effort taken.
        Then, to obey the law

    Of balance, add a third to waken
The reader with a shorter hitch of breath,
        As if a smallish kraken

    Intruded, promising not death
But startlement. The first line is the point,
        The pivot of the meth-

    od, focusing upon the joint
Of hinged recipricals. This isn't all:
        For then you must annoint

    The time with echoes, which should fall
Upon line ends in terza rima style:
        The second musical

    In rhyme next's first and third -- all while
Maintaining forward movement. Let it flow,
        Accepting no denial

    Of the brisk prace. There's nothing slow
        Or sudden. Let it go.

—17 September 2003

Hetereometric terza rima -- I especially like how each line of a rhyme is progressively 5, 4, 3 feet of diminishment -- in a pattern that I've never actually used to any effect. Offered in case anyone else can use it. And yes, I am heavily influenced by Hollander's Rhyme's Reason, why do you ask?

---L.