Tag Archives: couplet rhyme

Double-Trouble Sonnet: 14 lines of rhymed couplets. The beginning and end of
the lines rhyme. Rhyme Scheme:
1
st stanza a-b, a-b, c-d, c-d
2
nd stanza e-f e-f g-h g-h
3
rd stanza i-j i-j k-l k-l
4
th stanza m-n m-n

Double-Trouble Sonnet

Grandparents’ Dilemma

Waiting to see what grandchildren choose
sating their dreams, wanting not to lose
watching their decisions, seeing their choices
catching the desires in their voices
Grandpa listens and engages in play
Grandma hears and considers a way
wondering what we will be asked to do
pondering how to help them through
When do you advise or intervene?
Then are you the selected go-between?
How do grandparents perform their role?
Now we think– console or patrol?
What do we do when we get involved?
But to dig in and work until problem solved.

http://www.rainbowcommunications.org/velvet/forms/
My Thanks to Linda Varsell Smith for her contributions above.

While Linda (the creator of this form) rhymed the first syllable of every line,
I believe also rhyming the first foot, is consistent with her idea.
By doing so one is able to use iambic pentameter without any foot substitution as I have in my example below.

My example

Mice in the Walls (Double Trouble Sonnet)

The phones quit till my father made a splice.
“Who owns this house,” he yelled, “It’s not the mice.”
Our house was warmer than it was outside
One mouse chewed through the wall and came inside!
That boon was advertised to large and small,
and soon our walls could never hold them all.
Dad patched the holes he found with Brillo pad
o’re thatched with poisoned plaster – cus he’s mad.
He slapped a trap in every room and hall
The  traps all snapped but never caught them all.
We live trapped bunches of them every night,
when five to ten took after scents delight.
At last the only mice that were not gone
were mashed beneath the chair mat we’d rolled on.

© Lawrencealot – March 9, 2015

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