The Ultimate Fight

          I wrote this in my spare time. It is an Italian sonnet.

          For the not-so-smooth-with-poetry people, a sonnet is defined by Merriam-Webster as "a fixed verse form . . . consisting of 14 lines that are typically 5-foot iambics rhyming according to a prescribed scheme." In other words, fourteen lines of writing with five beats per line.

        

    I hook and cross and kick high from the side,

    He knocks my body down with only pride.

    I trip him, strike him and dodge him, alack,

    He cleverly knows where to strike me back.

5              Because I am too proud, I always try

                To best this foe, for else I know I’ll die.

                Can you know this creature? His bite and sting

                That keeps me hurt, and from my own dear king?

                I am not just a failing man, a door

10           That swings like lazy men sleep, like a floor.

                Who is my foe? Why fight? And his answer

                Did shake me, making my mind a dancer.

                “Until you know yourself, I have no name,

                And when you know the truth, He’ll help you tame.”