Sonnet For The Boys

It's Friday night, and all my mates are high,
And supping lager from a can somewhere.
The dubstep's on, the speakers boom and blare -
The joints are passed around (but always by
The left-hand side - though no one quite knows why);
The wisps of smoke begin to choke the air,
As each man slumps into his comfy chair:
Their bodies sink as minds take off and fly.
But I'm sat here at work with freezing tits -
Because of hoggish poverty, I'm forced
To babysit some chef from off TV -
I hope his food gives everyone the shits.
As for my friends - I love them all, of course:
I only hope they spark one up for me.

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.