formalist

Will Shakespeare explained
why he kept his metric scheme
"iamb what iamb"

formal constraints

One hundred forty syllables suffice
for those who'll spend the effort, and the time
to choose each word with effort (not with dice)
within constraints of meter, and of rhyme.
Communication takes two of a kind
whose inner lexicons contrive to synch
but certainty that there's another mind
rests more on faith, than arguments one'd think.
Elizabethan sonnets set one norm
for Dryden, Shakespeare, Coleridge, and Donne.
Ideas run wild, while hewing to the form.
But some seem unconvinced this could be fun.
Some other life, I may be one of those
content to dream in monochrome, and prose.

sow's ear

A presidency's arc in rhyming verse
sweet presentation, 'though the content's gall.
Obama's exit changed us for the worse;
Trump seems Hell-bent on our republic's fall.
The Checks and Balances our Framers wrought
collapse when Congress shirks its proper role;
when donors dictate to the pawns they've bought
It's dollars, not the People, in control.
Each week, his language skills degenerate;
where others focus, he spews verbal hash.
A manichean world, all "bad" or "great"
excludes all values neither "gold" nor "trash".
I might as well write sonnets to the moon;
Trump's deaf to what's not pitched in a cartoon.

Times change

Since Robert Frost, the poets' realm's grown small
their library's contracted to one shelf.
Where Milton sang of Eden, and the Fall,
the Modern's world's no bigger than the self.
Miranda craved an Art that's got more range
let haiku-masters keep theirs neat, and terse.
While others whine, he'll engineer the change;
this generation's primed for rhyming verse.
Millennia, t'was poets ruled the stage,
from ribald comic highs, to tragic lows.
His Hamilton's the wonder of the age,
eclipsing treatments done in plodding prose.
Each year, some forms gain favor, some forms lose.
Tomorrow, something new may please the Muse.

changing fashions

Since Robert Frost, the poets' realm's grown small
their library's contracted to one shelf.
Where Milton sang of Eden, and the Fall,
the Modern's world's no bigger than herself.
Miranda craved an Art that's got more range
let haiku-masters keep theirs neat, and terse.
While others whine, he'll engineer the change;
this generation's primed for rhyming verse.
Millennia, t'was poets ruled the stage,
from ribald comic highs, to tragic lows.
His Hamilton's the wonder of the age,
eclipsing treatments done in plodding prose.
Each year, some forms gain favor, some forms lose.
Who knows what offerings may please the Muse?

times change

Miranda brought rhymed verse back into vogue

his Hamilton's the smash hit of the age

to cast a banker as a dashing rogue

infused new spirit into New York's stage

pentameter trips lightly off the tongue

when Mamet's characters connive and scheme

but Hamilton's libretto must be sung

to conjure history as in a dream

like hemlines, literary fashions drift

one bad review could ring your curtain down

but if they're raves, the format gets a lift

the playwright's hailed the hero of the town

Elizabethan sonnets are passé

but if they're coming back's not mine to say

Hamilton!

Miranda brought rhymed verse back to the stage
to tell an orphan's inspirational
life story to a cynical new age
his Hamilton's acclaimed sensational
a renaissance of forms we'd thought passé
reshaping how our stars of the stage speak
as if medieval Europe changed the way
it valued heritage in Attic Greek
libbreticists fit in historic facts
but human drama grips the audience
who may not care about stamps, tea, or tax
but love a costume drama's elegance
with time, a culture's templates ebb, and flow
but this year, Hamilton's the hottest show

summarizing Proust

Proust kept a log of his  untidy mind
inviting readers in to sink, or swim
some find their thoughts are much of the same kind
some feel it's all particular to him
great literature ought to resonate
but still meets a diversity of taste
those hawthorn blossoms of his endless prate
some readers find a shapeless verbose waste
a shorter form fits my attention span
of seventy iambs in rhyming verse
within a reader's mind I dare hope can
evoke a self-consistent universe
a monument to years spent pent in bed
Marcel's rich life was mostly in his head

Qualia

I dreamed that you could understand the code that I'd devised
devoid of ambiguity as plain as broad daylight
and anyone who heard or read could look out through my eyes
a sweet, seductive fantasy that helped me sleep at night
I rushed to put it down in ink the moment I awoke
but trains of baggage came along with every word I chose
the clarity was the mirage, and all I clutched was smoke
that through my fingers oozed away and to the stars arose
Retreat!Retrench! at least in math, we share communion pure
that isn't just conventional, transparent to us all
but Gödel interjects to say I must not be so sure
 an edifice on such a base in time may also fall
I hammer language 'til it fits in heptametric verse
then launch it on its Viking pyre into the universe

bum rap

for many readers, "poetry" means rhyme
and meter's not a matter of concern
manipulation of our breath and time
seems too abstruse and nothing they should learn
Miranda bucks the tide (or "swims upstream"?)
his Hamilton's the wonder of the age
as if he'd dare each rapping fool to dream
that he might captivate tomorrow's stage
starvation's the more common poet's fate
the public hates to think, and doesn't read
we teach out children literature's great
but all incentives reinforce brute greed
they've barely time to scan the morning's news
and spare no thought to gratify the Muse