It's not my entry for the comp, John, but with a few tweaks I suppose it could be!

Jayne

Yes it could. Saves you the trouble of having to write something new. I always trawl through stuff I've done. Come to that...

Very neat indeed, John. Not content with rhymes merely at the end of each line ...

Yes indeedy. I got the idea from a poem by Louis MacNeice on that great poems file. I may say it's hellish tricky and my admiration for MacNeice knows no bounds. HIS poem sounds utterly natural.

I actually "built" these stanzas, line by line, within a very exhausting dream:

Within my room, I work to finish lines
that might support the stanzas of a sonnet,
and try to dovetail them as an octet.
But there are crucial problems with my rhymes
before I even smooth the fourth—such signs
of instability, beyond mere nit,
requires a Rhymer’s Guide to retrofit,
to square the verse with classical designs.

But then the lady whom I hope to woo—
not Will’s or Petrarch’s—spells my stanzas’ doom:
You’re pazzo if you think these dives’ll do!
I cannot fret, for she gives me the clue
that rhyming June and moon may cure her gloom
and canonize us in a sonnet room.

Ralph

Now, I've come at this one from a different angle and am working my way from:

Muscovies dabbled in the Chelmsford mould

to

Looked at his mother with a mild surprise
And leant upon a leek in Derringham

This may take me some time...

It took Joyce a lifetime.

A list of rhymes! It’s like a Cupid’s chart
That finds each word a happy counterpart,
Encouraging the pair to dance and dart
Around a poet’s noggin – Pretty smart!
Some say such lists plonk horse behind the cart;
These (serious as Dave or Dierdre Spart)
Declare: ‘True poems come straight from the heart,
And ought to come unbidden.’ (Like a fart?)
They look askance at rhyme, as at a tart,
And sniff: ‘That’s artifice, so can't be Art.'
Tell that to Browning, Pope or Lorenz Hart!
‘I rhyme therefore I am,’ René Descartes
Did not say – but I might, since for my part
I love to see words party. Right. Let’s start...

Much have I travell'd in the realms of blank
Verse and rhymeless odes and ballads made,
But when I've tried to rhyme I much have prayed
In vain, alas, before my poor heart sank,
Accusing me of being just a crank
Who ought to go and find an honest trade.
But then one day my doubts were all allayed,
And there's a dictionary I must thank,
A rhyming one, which when I come up dry
And cannot find a perfect match for night
Or I've forgotten bee and tree and glee
Are rhymes, although I try with all my might,
Is always there, my savior, standing by,
To give me what I need and rescue me.

Ah George, my sentiments exactly.