From Mindspillage

A post in the "law_students" Livejournal community featured a frustrated applicant asking for suggestions on verse forms in which to write his last application essays, so he could "go out in a blaze of dadaist glory". How could I help but respond?

Sestina says "obsession," plainly,
a reeling verse of focused sight;
the double dactyl's just ungainly,
the limerick is far too light.
The faux-ku says "I don't like writing"—
the villanelle is more inviting,
evoking Dylan Thomas' rage,
but found too often on the page.
Onegin stanza says, "the formal
is but a game I meet with glee
(and vodka—rather lawyerly);
a state of mind that's quite abnormal,
but suited for the legal grind."
I'd hate to see that app declined!

---

I cannot resist a good challenge. So Geogre has a standing challenge on his Wikipedia user page to vandalize it with sonnets, and I have obliged.

Until the bitter end

(a first attempt)

Although I know you only by a name,
your invitation beckoned me to write,
and while I have much else to do tonight,
to miss this chance would be an utter shame.

A sonnet, then? How strange a choice of form
for work that often chooses freer verse,
or blank (like Alkivar), or sometimes worse
(as seen in posts by those who front the storm).

If vandal I will be, then to deface
a page with lines expressly called upon
and not some other writing, sense or non-,
seems vaguely incorrect, or out of place.

Well, then, so my intention will be clear,
The last line isn't going to rhyme at all, and the meter will be wrong, too.

Eugenics

(an Onegin stanza, of course)

Of all the sonnets on your page,
you haven't yet got one Onegin
(which oft inspire fits of rage
or heavy incantations pagan
when hoped-for tetrametric grace
falls pitifully upon its face.)
A lack becomes an invitation
and magnet for procrastination
for one who wearies of the dull:
though metapoetry grows tired,
that's where the errant neurons fired
and where the idle fancies pull—
at least I claim no rich pretension
my verse should merit wiki's mention.