Prompted by Poet's Place Cafe

Form of the Week puSlogh vahg

My Klingon is very rusty, it is so hard not to use any long vowel sounds anywhere.

The Hat and the Cat (stronghold in 3rd and 6th syllables)

The cat smacked the straw hat
when it saw the brown dog
jump a net, in fun fetch
that was won with some fun,
not a sin, just a win.
                   ~~Judi Van Gorder

A Fan (stronghold in 3rd and 5th syllables)

Jill's a fan of Spam on bread
Jill will bet one gets that dread
Not a bit, begin the quest,
with just one, bad-fun gladness
It's an on and off snack event.
                   ~~Judi Van Gorder

Notes: ▼

The puSlogh vagh is a little something for the Star Trek fan. This stanzaic form, according to Bob Newman is a Klingon form. Apparently the Klingon language has only 5 vowel sounds. To preserve the Klingon spirit of the verse one should only use the short vowel sounds of a e i o u as in bag-beg-big-bog and bug, no long vowel sounds such as May, me, my, moan, mule. It is important to go by sound not spelling. You really should read Newman's description of the form for which I provide this link, Vol Central. I add no new insight, I am just passing on what I read there.

The elements of the puSlogh vagh are:
         1. stanzaic, written in any number of cinquains. However until you speak Klingon fluently I recommend you stick with just one cinquain.
         2. isosyllabic, same number of syllables per line. The number of syllables is determined by the first line, it can be as few as 4 and as many as 10.
         3. composed using only short or soft vowel sounds as in fan, bend, it, opt, fun, mystic. No hard or long vowel sound as in ate, beet, lie, OK, June, my.
         4. composed with at least 2 "strongholds" within each line. The stronghold position is determined by the poet and established in the first line. A stronghold is specific syllabic position for a repeated sound. In this case assonant rhyme. In other words, the vowel sound could be in the 3rd syllable of each line and 6th syllable of each line, or the 1st, 4th syllable and 6th syllable of each line. It could even be the 1st and 4th syllables with no end rhyme. etc..written with a different key vowel in each line, the order of which is at the discretion of the poet.
         5. The stronghold vowel sound can be repeated once, twice, or even more depending on the length of the line and inventiveness of the poet, but it must be repeated at least once in the stronghold position in each line.