Day 26 of National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) .

Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a sonnet. The strict rules of sonnets:

• 14 lines
• 10 syllables per line
• Those syllables are divided into five iambic feet. (An iamb is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable).
• Rhyme schemes vary, but the Shakespearian sonnet is abab cdcd efef gg (three quatrains followed by a concluding couplet).
• Sonnets are often thought of as not just little songs, but little essays, with the first six-to-eight or so lines building up a problem, the next four-to-six discussing it, and the last two-to-four coming to a conclusion.

The “rules” are somewhat bendable, but I tried stay relatively true to the strict format. Herewith:

Sales Pitch (Read the Signs)

The sign says No Solicitors. You knock.
Beware the Dog that lunges at my door. 
“The rats and piss ants this year run amok.”
You’ll slay them all. They’ll bother me no more.

A spider egg sac hangs upon the wall.
“A hundred spiderlings your home will fill.”
More likely to my garden they will crawl
to feast upon the bugs you wish to kill. 

No rodents, bugs or crawlies bother me.
The poison’s “safe for pets,” you persevere. 
My Wildlife Habitat sign plain to see;
No chemicals have touched my yard in years.

Your sales pitch failed, now please just go away.
My “pests” will live to see another day.