Sonnet Minus One: A Jest [acrostic On Thirteen Lines] Poem by Richard St. Clair

This is not a sonnet, can’t you tell? It
Has a line less than it should, for, hell, if
I am to be printed in this broadside,
Rules require the lines to number oddly.
This allows me eight lines at the first, but
Even though my rhyming is well-versed, as
Every critic knows the issue’s passed, that
Never will this poem be a classic.

Literati want their sonnets catholic
In the best King’s English Shakespeare hath, and
Not the three-legged race this thirteen-liner
Eggs the couplet-craving crowd unraveled:
So, I scorn to tread the road more traveled.