richards odes

Multiple Verse Forms

I like to play around with words to see what I can do

The scansion, rhythm and the rhyme are very pleasing too..

Of course you have to play around with a rhyming scheme,

While sticking to the subject and following a theme,

Which might be something serious or maybe just a dream.

Using different verse forms can take a bit of time.

It isn’t always easy to find a cunning rhyme

But to do it badly seems to me a crime

And when you’re done the feeling really is sublime.

I really do love limericks for comedy at least

And sonnets are a verse form rather like a feast

Simple rhyming couplets are like a hungry beast

Sometimes when you’ve started you wish that you had ceased

But the soul within you expands as if with yeast!

Triplets are quite fun to use and quatrains are as well

Quintains are unusual as anyone can tell

As for going further, it’s enough to make you yell

Though a rhyming sestet is a form I’d like to sell

Though in that case the themes can be difficult to gel.

And the perfect scansion is not ringing like a bell!

To make a rhyming septet is really rather fun

I could be going scatty by the time that I am done

And if you are still reading I’m not the only one!

After I am finished I might just have to run

For there is no accolade that I might have won

And there is no likelihood of sitting in the sun

With a cup of coffee and a tasty currant bun!

A lovely rhyming octave is by far the hardest yet

Though it can be known by the title “an octet”.

I would only do it to fulfil a heavy bet

Of course this is a challenge, which I have been set

Maybe there’s some medicine for a man to get

Though it might be costly and I’d end up in debt

Or jump into a river and finish up quite wet

But I’m not into failure it just makes me upset!

Now I’ll set a challenge to anyone out there

To complete this rhyming nonet would be only fair

……….