The holiday weekend sneezathon

Yes, I spent Memorial Day and more with a cold. The fever makes me listless. Also, can't figure out where I hid the air conditioner... It must be lurking somewhere.

I am passing my time between naps trying to write in terza rima. Specifically, I'm trying to write a terzanelle, which is the unholy offspring of a villanelle using terza rima rhyme. Villanelle's are notoriously difficult to write, the terzanelle is supposed to be a bit easier, it isn't quite so overpoweringly repeating. I feel rather like Bartolomeo Ammannati must have felt after carving his Neptune, a slavish homage to Michelangelo's David--adding a beard just wasn't enough to keep the populace from noting it was a rank imitation. In this case, the populace is my own feverish gallery of critics who generally sit in the gray matter house seats and throw me unsolicited reviews of work-in-progress. Would ibuprofen help shut them up? No? I don't think wine is the answer either.

The word "terzanelle" has a Tarzan sort of echo, and it is a muscular verse form. Repetitions after all are the key to glutes and form.

I write free verse because I can't do the harder stuff well. I default to my easiest mode of expression. But I also believe I'm supposed to Grow and Learn and generally Improve my tool kit.  It is me, the thesaurus and rhyming dictionary today...and the sneezes, no doubt they will inform the rhythm of my lines.