Double Dactyls

Poststructural Pub
1

Ok, we’ve done haiku to death. Here’s a real challenge.

I here quote from an online chat conducted today by Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten, a personal hero of mine:

A double dactyl is two quatrains containing a single rhyme, that being the final sound of each quatrain. With the exceptions of the final, rhyming lines, the entire poem must be in paired dactyls, each dactyl being one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed. The rhyming lines must have four and only four downbeats. Line breaks can be idiosyncratic.

Thus, you get two quatrains exactly like this:

DUM-dum-dum DUM-dum-dum
DUM-dum-dum DUM-dum-dum
DUM-dum-dum DUM-dum-dum
DUM-dum-dum DAH

In addition, the first line of the poem must be gibberish, and one line and only one line in the poem must be a dactylic six-syllable word. Generally the second line is a person’s name, though variations are permitted.

Got it? Very demanding, waaay more so than a limerick. Very childish. Rather exciting, when you nail one.

The most famous double dactyl is probably this one, by John Hollander:

Higgledy piggledy
Benjamin Harrison
Twenty-third president
Was, and as such,

Served between Clevelands and,
Save for this trivial
Idiosyncrasy
Didn’t do much.

Note: although GW simply says the first line of the poem need only be “gibberish,” I have yet to see one of these begin with something other than “higgledy piggledy,” and this in fact is another name for the form.

My first attempt (which is admittedly pretty lame) is about the business trip I’m going on tomorrow:

Higgledy piggledy
Box-playing wage slave Ro3b
Goes to a meeting that
Frankly just sucks.

With resignation, he
Sits in a conference room
Digito-femurally
Playing the Bucks.

I’m sure you lot can do better.

2

A pair o’ pterodactyls
To Mt. Ida took flight
To dare a pair o’ dactyls
To join them in a fight.

3

Pickety pockety
Poor Nanohedron makes
Hash of a lame double
Dactyloid verse.

Misapprehendingly,
First he had thought 'twas a
Cojoinèd dinosaur.
Which one is worse?

4

Higgledy Piggledy
Lambchop’s a frisky one
Dance in her pasture and
Celebrate spring.

Find her a fiddle and
Bow, and then glory in
Anthropomorphism!
She’ll play a fling!

5

Scoobity Doobity
I prefer “Nerd”, because
Dorks are more socially
out of their depth

gallus domesticus
Must fear the Geeks since they,
Capitanivorous,
cause chicken death

6

Higgledy piggledy
“Call out your grievances!”
Angela Johnson did
painfully sigh.

“Pointing of fingers and
killing of neighbors, while
unsatisfactory,
surely apply!”

(I have no idea what that means, I was just sort of trying out the form. Let’s try another that isn’t nonsense.)

Higgledy piggledy
Cranky Aunt Judith, while
swinging her horsewhip, did
grimace and moan:

“Children are innately
harmful, destructive. I’ll
incontrovertibly
never one own.”

Yay! :laughing:

7

Jumpin’ Gethsemane
Once as a young boy I
Prayed for a bike but I
Never got one.

Then in a vision Our
Savior came unto me.
“Just steal that bike; I’ll
Forgive you, my son.”

8

I love these little Walden snippets. They remind me a lot of Walt Kelly. Perhaps Walden should resurrect Pogo.

9

Next you’ll be telling me He died for our Schwinns.

10

That is so unredeemably terrible that I wish I had said it.

(But to paraphrase Mr. Whistler talking to Mr. Wilde – “Don’t worry, gonzo, you probably will.”)

11

Im sure that many of us do…and will. :smiley:

12

Schmackadoo Rumblekins!
What do you get if you
Cross a grey Elephant
with Kangaroos?

Pachydermology
says that this creature is
nothing that any
Australian could lose!

13

Flummox and Balderdash!
Davy Spillane is an
Excellent Dude whom the
CHIFF has maligned!

I have no DOUBT that his
Whistle at LEAST would be
Ultramelodically
Uber-designed!



(editing…forgot to make the last words rhyme…revising…revising…)

14

Hickory dickory,
Scottie is such a nerd;
she has a weakness for
doggerel dares.

This won’t be clever, though.
More likely tedious.
Sesquipedalian.
Nobody cares.


:wink:

15

I don’t know… I just find it difficult writing in a waltz rhythm.

16

Maybe a tango or jitterbug Walden.

17

Fluff and kerfuffle, why
Scottie my Darling, of
Course we care deeply, such
Bright clever Text!

but,
Chiffers are fickle, click
Threads with abandon, then
Unsystematically
Click on the next.

18

These rhymes are sweet,
And I’m tired of limericks -
Yesterday, wrote one
And sent it elsewhere

Thought that I’d send it
To all of you Chiffers
But then I though twice
And said “No one’ll care.”

But this Double Dactyl form’s
Really inspiring
I think I’ll rewrite my ol’
Limerick in verse

'Twas four separate stanzas
And this lovely format
Will keep me from being
Intangibly terse.

(A double double dactyl)

:slight_smile:

19

I threatened to send on
My translated limerick.
I just spent some time
Trying to make it just so

I hope that you like it
'Twas fun just to try it
And without too much further ado,
Here we go:



Here’s a true story
Of yesterday’s lunchtime
When out by the river
I played on my fife

More often than not
There are folks just across from me
Brothers and sisters,
A husband and wife.

But what was so strange
About yesterday’s lunch
Was that no one was sitting there
Listening to me;

When all of a sudden
Two male adolescents
Began throwing stones
From behind yonder tree!

They tried and they tried
But they just couldn’t hit me
And after a while,
They just went away

For thus, in the end
It was I, won the battle:
I hit them with every
Note that I played!


(This is too fun … must get back to work!)
:slight_smile:

20

fyffer, you non-conformist you…