How to Compose a Fifteener, the DIY Poem Boasting a New Poetic Form and a Sampling Methodology: More Nonsense in Meters & Rhymes

Begin by quoting the opening line of a well-known poem, ideally a pentameter line. (Adopting for yourself as author of this new work a pseudonym derived from the name of the composer of the poem you've chosen to amplify is optional.) 

Example: 

Quality by Tyll Wakespeare 

The quality of mercy is not strain’d. 

The five accented syllables appear in boldface. 

Compose a second pentameter line which, if ever so loosely, follows the narrative or other sense of the first, making sure its five accented syllables rhyme with those syllables in similar positions within the first line. 

Example: 

The quality of mercy is not strain’d.
Still, Dali, being nervous, kiss’d, then caned

Compose a third pentameter line in which internal rhyme is optional – except for the final syllable, which must rhyme with the final syllables of the first two lines. The “sense” -- narrative or otherwise -- of the line should – again, more or less loosely – complete that of the first two lines. 

Example:

The quality of mercy is not strain'd.
Still, Dali, being nervous, kiss’d, then caned
each freshman, fuming, “Let this swamp be drain’d!”

This completes the first tercet.

For the second tercet, compose a pentameter line whose five accented syllables are identical or nearly identical with those of the first tercet’s opening line but you array in a different order. Compose a second pentameter line whose accented syllables rhyme with those of the first, as was done in the first tercet. The internal rhymes of the third line are, as before, optional for all but the last syllable which must rhyme with the final syllables of the first two lines. This completes the second tercet.

Tercets three through five are composed in similar fashion, with an attempt made to have the last line of each tercet in some fashion wrap up the sense of the whole tercet -- though this wrapping up may be set aside in favor of continuity from one tercet to that following -- and to have the final tercet in some fashion meaningfully – perhaps meta-meaningfully? -- wrap up the whole poem, a poem of five tercets totaling fifteen lines.

Example:

Force by Tyll Andrahmas

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower,
of course, shows new, pristine and lively power.
It eyes me as it cries, “You need a shower.”

As through its green fuse thrives this flow’r, its force
lets two pre-teens with knives devour my horse.
Ingesting beasts? Alert Inspector Morse!

Weak green-fuse-driving flowers’ forces? Through!
We’ve seen Bath’s wives -- yours? Ours? Divorce won’t do.
What’s needed’s discombobulation, nu? 

What drives said flow’r (if force be through) is green.
It strives (though sour, though course) to “screw that scene.”
Now, ple-e-e-ease don’t claim you don’t know what we mean.)

So: flower force is through. It’s green fuse drives,
Which, dour of source (though blue of jean) apes chives.
(Grandstanding stanzas find their feet in fives.)

Ready to try one of your own? The following will get you started: 

Midway by Ollie (“Dan”) Teejerry

Midway on the journey of our life...