CLASSIC FORMS

While the buzz and pleasure of creating

in the liberated fashion of free verse

most certainly has its attractions,

dalliances in the classic forms

can bring most gratifying satisfactions —

enabling the production

of taut, structured beauty.

The discipline required to fit into a template

of specific metrics, rhyme schemes, and line patterns,

can also serve to strengthen one's poetic muscles

for the at-least-as-difficult task of writing

without preset rules or exemplars.

Funny how the discipline a classic form requires

often provides more of a sense of relief and ease

than the prospect of interfacing with a fresh page

as a dauntingly deep 'blank canvas'....

So, like many, L P N has sallied back and forth

between the free and the formal,

ambidextrous.

Some Of The Classic Dalliances Include:

Sonnets, Vilanelles, Sestinas, Tetraktyses,

Limericks, Tercets, Cinquains, Rondeaus, Englyns

(and in other dedicated sections also Haiku and Songs)

Read some of the classic styled poems

with more samples to follow...

> CLASSIC FORMS

MOON SONNET + 3 HAIKU

A Sonnet: The Moon

As she shapes all shades of Desire
I stare at her various crescents
Hopelessly hoping to breathe of her Essence,
The sky’s cool sculptress, fluid with fire.
     Making bulls’ horns gleam like pearl,
     And crabs pinch (pinching) their own reflection
     Fair Mistress Moon completes her complexion
     With the moods of Mother, Wife & Girl.
          But then, at the height of her greatest renown,
          When she makes men mad and cats get captured
          She will formally faint – and disappear.
               Returning, like clockwork, with newly fashioned gown,
               The poet views her sculpture and is enraptured,
               While sturdy sailors peek behind her thin veneer.

Three Moon Haiku

O    the full moon makes
an avenue    Of Ocean
soft white    in the night

the swan    is ducking
in the pond’s    rich green algae
below    the noon moon

the moon    under light
shifting shrouds    is clouding
over    and over
WHEN THE WATER-BOY WONDERED (A Vilanelle)

Late the Lion rises, late the Lion sings.
Water-Boy freezes, then rushes, as he wonders....
Arrows must be moon-dipped, the lake upon its wings.

The Judges, who wear old sea-joined rings,
Listen to the boy, as (despite no lightning) it thunders.
Late the Lion rises, late the Lion sings.

The decision ought to be the King’s –
Who will bully us if he blunders.
Arrows must be moon-dipped, the lake upon its wings.

Water-Boy dutifully races, and brings
The lovely lonely Queen, the news to round up Hunters.
Late the lion rises, late the Lion sings.

Fearful forces gather, first Elder flings
His naked spear: the Lion, wounded, plunders.
Arrows must be moon-dipped, the lake upon its wings.

After the panic, death, and many mournful things,
It’s over.... as Water-Boy sits, and wonders.
Late the Lion rises, late the Lion sings.
Arrows must be moon-dipped, the lake upon its wings.

LPN (Astrobiographical) = Leo Rising, Sagittarian Moon, Aquarian
LIMERICKS 3 OF CORRECTNESS UH QUESTIONABLY

A physicist confronted the Void
where the ghost of Sir Sigmund Freud
     said, you’re way off the goal
     trapped in this black hole
for there you’re no longer employed

There was a young woman of Siam
who always insisted, “Oh, I am!”
     whenever a lad
     said, “Hmm, you’re not bad.”
that (im)modest young woman of Siam.

The judge who was quite fond of order
condemned migrants crossing the border
     yet from various hoods
     he bought many black goods
in secret: a terrible hoarder
SESTINA: UNCERTAINTY

I
In the swamps of Minnesota a lake-tribe worships cranes.
They make miniatures in silver,
And hold many weary vigils just to fathom
The tongue of its whoopings, best in heat.
Wading well's the only science on this purple plain,
As awkward toes do not disturb the evening.

II
The vamping husband recites "Good evening".
Smelling a rat smiling Cheese, he cranes
His neck of unripe tomatoes and his plain
Sneezy spouse quick sprays it silver.
Below the crust there is little heat
And the hunting habits hard to fathom.

III
Sea, anonyme, which once boasted so many a fathom,
Your wiry waves one solstice went evening
Evening out before my eyes, foamless heat.
Why? Why? Petrifying the dizzy cranes,
You glossed the sky a piggish silver
And the reed-god hated you, you marbled plain.

IV
The mayor said, "The cause is not yet plain,"
And the damage--none, none can fathom.
Repairs of course shall cost us an arm's worth of silver,
And the kids too have had quite the evening.
And so the clamor for, and of, ugly cranes ...
The ash remains, retaining a permanent heat.

V
Two phantom kings wind it up in a dead heat.
Souls tremulous, hearts gritty, minds plain,
They compete for possession of loony cranes
Faulting there a porous iron fathom.
I even got a girly-saint! they go "evening"
And hide in the oratory of silver.

VI
Tonto steals to Tahiti on Silver.
L.R. bawls mercilessly and calls the heat.
ARE YOU SERIOUS? fragments the ochre evening,
As American scars whisk across the plain.
Spoons rattle, bibles burn, shadows fathom.
The Lakemen still, still revere the cranes.

VII
All is not silver, it is all too plain.
Heat the body, numb, why fathom.
Evening neither laughs nor ... she cranes.