In the middle of packing up my home office for our upcoming move, I found several binders with work from my graduate school days at George Mason University—including the course Forms of Poetry, led by Peter Klappert. Of all the courses I took at Mason, I believe I learned the most from Peter’s classes; each week was some new burst of knowledge or shift in perspective.

Just for fun, here are my “experiments” for our section on “light verse.” Hope you enjoy!

Epigram: Middle East Fashion Report

The sword is mightier than the pen.

Diplomacy’s out, and missiles are in.

Epigram: Hungry for Love

If love is neither meat nor drink,

Can chasteness be cured by sausage links?

But cravings persist, if I woo or behave —

Oh why can’t love be microwaved?

Clerihew: A Seductive Snack with Ms. Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Wouldn’t trade love for Chick-Fil-A.

But for a sonnet,

She’d give her breast or thigh for you to feast upon it.

Limerick: In the Studio

There was a musician from Fairfax

Who mastered both trumpet and bass sax.

When he practiced the drums,

He came up all thumbs,

So he stuck with the brass when they laid tracks.

Double Dactyl: Legacy

Snuggledy puggledy,

Oedipus Tyrannus

Dusted off Dad and then

Fluffed Mom’s wazoo.

Sophocles wrote it but

Freud made it bothersome:

Psychosomatically

Your eyes ache too.