Unconventional Light Verse

When I was young, I developed an unseemly passion for turning serious poetry forms into light verse. The following Shakespearian sonnet is from 1970:

Consider, friend, the paradox of life:

It’s all you have, and all you’re sure to lose.

All that you do – grow up, pick out a wife,

Owes more to Chance than I, for one, would choose.

Fear not! The answer is Philosophy.

And if, at that, your heart fills with gladness,

Remember that all thought is Sophistry,

And thought is the certain way to madness.

These...