The Battle of the Sonnets rages on, and Steve Blevins has really thrown down the gauntlet this time:

Art and Boogers
Perhaps there are no others who enjoy
This wondrous and eccentric metered rap
Perhaps we have done nothing but annoy
Our friends with this resplendent piece of crap.
 
Perhaps a booger joke has more appeal
Perhaps our world is vulgar and inane
Perhaps the other bloggers do not feel 
The love of verse that’s driving us insane.
 
Perhaps we cannot rectify this fault.
Perhaps we should be silent and obscure
Perhaps it’s time for poetry to halt
And leave behind its radiant allure.
 
But if you have a different view, please write,
And I will try to set the record right.

(For those of you joining the party late, it'll take you two minutes to get up to speed: here, here, here, and here.)

As I composed my response, I started to psych myself out a little bit. “I’m dueling sonnets with Dr. Steve Blevins, M.D.!” I thought.  “This man is a poet and a medical professional!”  I mean, if you were suffering from severe abdominal pains, Steve could skillfully remove your inflamed appendix and sew you back up, whereas I would probably just end up making a big mess.  And somehow Steve finds the time between emergency appendectomies to write masterful lines like: "For justice comes and goes just like a wind/ That rustles through the night and then departs,/ But time and rank injustice shan't rescind/ The love of language laced within our hearts."

"Keep your head, Shaggy," I thought. "Don't get distracted.  You can do this."  Heck, I don't really need to get any work done this afternoon...

Kittens in Glasses
You say, “Perhaps vulgarity’s the norm.”
You do present an interesting tableau.
But maybe sonnets suffer ‘cause the form
Went out of style four hundred years ago.

Perhaps Shakespeare himself suffered some flops:
The “unwashed masses” are a timeless group.
From "Punch and Judy" to "Jackass" and "Cops"
There’s always been an audience for poop.

But OS seems to host a classy crowd;
The writing here is typically first rate.
There must be fertile middle ground unplowed
‘Twixt Shakespeare and “Celebrity Blind Date.”

No matter if you’re erudite or crass
You can’t resist a kitty in a glass:

Zia, caught with her paw in the cookie jar, so to speak