Poetry Challenge: Write a Sonnet in Iambic Monometer

Ah, Swami Salemi hath ope’d his jaw, excoriatingly.
He doth not like my mono sonnet’s ess apparently.
He spouts out cancel culture trash. He states I cannot write,
“not verse and not a line of prose”. Doth he believe his tripe?

I usually don’t join in such kinds of activities—it’s not my thing. But something about the form, its shape, and how it compared to iambic heptameter, appealed to me; and as I leaned back in my chair, I began composing. The form reminded me of a snake, and so became my topic. [By the way, the reason I became a literary critic, over two decades ago, was because my poetry has continually been rejected and attacked. It seems one must continually explain one’s motives and one’s art in this era.] Anyway, the snake grew; and it was quite an enjoyable composition. Of course, there were turns and slides along the way; but, as it is a short poem, it was over and done with rather quickly. At this point in time, I prefer the tennos and dodeca, as allowing for more expansion, but avoiding prolixity. Anyway, here was that “sonnet”.

Like as
an S.
he has
finesse,
and bides
the dawn,
he hides
his yawn.
But snabs
a stray,
and grabs
the day…
to feast—
the Beast!

I really enjoyed writing the first quatrain, with its surprising simile embedded in the simplest words, but for the last “finesse”, the lone two-syllable word in the poem, a technique nicely practiced by Emily Dickinson (who was in my mind, as I composed).

In the second quatrain, in the process of making the poem, I went through so many phrases, I could not list them all, though the rhymes were secured. The second quatrain, in similar simplicity, moves with two verbs and their objects. Perhaps the picture is unappreciated by the dozing reader, and yet I found the elementary phrasing pleasing to my taste.

Moving to the sestet, I was torn between two possible 3rd quatrains:
“But snabs/ a stray,/ and grabs/ the day…” where an onomatopoetic neologism, suggesting sna…[ke] is used and Horace’s commonly phrased cliché is semi-disguised, led by an abrupt “But” indicating the quickness of the snake’s bite… or the more ordinary process “to squeeze/ a stray,/ and seize/ the day…” Finally, the couplet suggests a wider meaning, that I thought could be aided by Mr. Salemi’s clipped quote. Actually, because he seems offended? perturbed? when the poem is next published, I shall drop his last name, and simply attribute the quote to Joseph S.