Poetry Is Hard

I haven't written a sonnet since I was 17. I challenged myself to see how quickly I could write another. This took me four hours. You can probably tell.

A sonnet: only fourteen rhyming lines.
A hundred-forty syllables ain't much - 
It's hard to write a poem that sticks to such
A strict and miserly amount of time.
It's tricky to compose a verse sublime
Within such constricts; one that's meant to touch
The audience, without some kind of clutch 
Of how to cheat and just contrive the rhymes.
Upon line nine the rhyme should really alter
(I think it's technically called a 'volta'),
Which leaves the writer just two couplets, say,
To end the poem in a stylish way.
But all you really need is pen and ink - 
A simple sonnet's quicker than you think.