Rhyme Time

Rhyme works with a repetition of an end-of-word sound, which mates two words, and mates or mixes their meanings. If a poet is writing within a rhyme scheme, the need for a rhyming word is likely now and then to introduce new, unexpected thoughts to the poem, perhaps a new direction.

Sandy, a Song for the Planet

From Staten Island to cape May Beach,
the Jersey shore is quite a reach,
a beautiful beach—but not any more;
Sandy came in and took the shore.

I take my own;
you might have known. . .


Back at the Shore

They’re building again, preparing my dinner;
the width of their memory couldn’t be slimmer.
You can count on my coming, though the date isn’t set.
You've set the table for the supper-not-yet

Oh humans, greedy humans,
take only your own;
I take what’s been on loan

The rhyming of this next poem is a bit complex, and out of the normal, not the usual end-of-line rhyme; and some rhymes are a bit off:

· fuse and news rhyme within the same line;
· news almost rhymes with view, call that an off-rhyme;
· dissemble, disassemble, and assemble are also off-rhymes
· fusion and onion are off-rhymes;
· view is mid-line, not the usual end-of-line rhyme
· and then we have more,before, and store, rhymes that occur: end of line, beginning of line, and end of line.

Assemble!

Walked down the road
to get the Sunday paper
hoping to fuse current news
and my view of Los Alamos
without tempting fission.

Wicked powers dissemble
to disassemble our nucleus,
split Union—assemble!

Force lies in fusion.
Save the Race, save Union, and more
before we are unsheathed like an onion,
nothing left in store.

So it seems the rhyme scheme is somewhat fractured, not the usual end-of-line rhymes that marry words; and several rhymes are off rhymes, which suggests a “marriage” that is threatened or not working.

The subject of the poem is the state of presidential politics, 2016 and beyond, which threatens to split “Union,” the Country; the speaker wants to keep it assembled. What do the off-rhymes and irregular rhyming say to that? What do the three full rhymes at the end of poem have to say about the attempt to keep things together? And what does the poem’s play with the off-rhyme of nuclear “fission” and “fusion suggest?

Rhyme is a powerful, widespread and ancient, magnet in poetry.