Not my comfort zone, here is a concrete poem. Not sure how poetic it is, but it is surprisingly fun to do.
This is what was happening in our house while we were away. EDIT: Please ignore the underscoring and backslashes. Turns out formatting concrete poetry on WordPress is a nightmare.

_____ __________attic

___________the                crawl
______in                                           space
Somethingvitalhas    rustedthrough

overf l
rises    o
slowly     w
the water    i
And                  n

_____________g onto and
into the eaves,
__________through plaster
and drips
______drips

________d
to form damp planets

_________r

and coffeestain monsters

_________i
which grimace down at me

_________p

from the bedroom ceiling

__________s

As I stare up, full of dread.

Another short one today owing to severe jetlag.
A Senryu is a like a haiku but about humans rather than nature. It is also more apt to be lighthearted or sardonic than a haiku.
This one is about my two-year-old niece.

Given felt tip pens
With which to express herself,
She tattooed the couch.

A pantun is a Malaysian form. It’s short and has inexact rhymes. Which is what I need this morning.

The crushed remains of wedding guests
At breakfast; groaning, reminiscing
The happy couple, sadly missed
Exhausted, sleep. Too tired for kissing.

Heavens! I’ve been featured on the NaPoWriMo website. Hello Napowrimoans! *waves*

Cautionary Tales are grisly stories, usually in rhyming couplets of iambic tetrameter, expounding on a major flaw in the main character, and telling, in unpleasant detail, what dreadful fate befell them as a consequence. They are generally darkly humorous, making them popular with children, but have a serious moral message. This one is about me, and is all true except the ending (hopefully).

The chief defect of Thomasin
Was putting all the commas in
To other people’s notes and letters
Insisting she could make them better
Because the person truly hated
To see things badly punctuated
Poor grammar use and careless spelling
Had them swivel-eyed and yelling
They would start up great petitions
Slamming dangling prepositions
And their rage made people stammer
Fearful they’d correct their grammar.
They had known, fresh from the womb
How to distinguish “who” from “whom”
So they’d get angry, and they’d show it
When their peers didn’t know it.
Thomasin was so pedantic
They drove everybody frantic.
But alas, one fateful night
Mx Thomasin beheld a sight
That pained them mightily to see:
A twenty-four hour pharmacy
Which said (and here they had conniptions)
“Were here to help with you’re prescription’s”
Though the hour was very late
Our hero did not hesitate
For they knew no catastrophe
Worse than a rogue apostrophe.
So in they marched, and, feeling strong
Cried out “Your sign’s completely wrong!”
But found, too late, that they had stumbled
On a hold-up, badly bungled.
The mood was tense, the guns were out
And seeing them, the robber shout-
Ed, “You best lay down on the floor
And don’t tell no-one what you saw!”
Said Thomasin “It’s lie, not lay,
And I don’t think you meant to say
“Don’t tell no-one” because that means
You’re asking me to spill the beans.”
The grammar lesson ended there
The gun’s report hangs in the air.
And from our pedant’s temple pours
A final unrestrictive clause.
The moral’s what you all expected:
No-one likes to be corrected.

I’ve had a go at writing a ghazal. I’ve never encountered a more humbling poetic form. Done well, a ghazal is beautiful, poignant and evocative. See the poems of Rumi for some fantastic examples.
Done by me, it’s slightly awkward doggerel. I now know how my main source of poetic inspiration, Dorothy Parker, felt when she said her verses were “no damn good” and refused to call them poetry.

Ms Parker, can it be you didn’t know it?
How you’d be loved as ranconteuse and poet?

Each pithy little line you penned will show it,
And yet you said you never were a poet.

Some writers, with their egos puffed, will crow it!
Erroneously sure that they’re a poet

But you called your lines “no damn good” and oh! It
Stings: you did not count yourself a poet!

For if the standard’s set so high, I’ll blow it
And this word geek can never be a poet.