Higgledy-Piggledy,
Benedict Pitchfire,
loaning his nomen for use by the pope,
smiles contentedly,
Heidelbergensian
studies resuming
(at least, I should hope).
| I wrote this poem at the Bullfrog Brewery in Williamsport,
PA while on my Keystone Mountains trip. The fellow next to me, interrupting
his tale of just having made a DWI court appearance (yeah, he said this in
a bar) looked up at the TV and announced to all that Ratzinger had
just been named the new pope. I started musing, and much of the rest of the
work was written in my mind as I motorcycled up to Coudersport, PA (fortunately,
the rhythm of dactyls are catchy enough to not have to write them down).
The poem was sent, via postcard, to Benedict in Heidelberg. Frankly, I think
it's delightful, and you can talk to Benedict about what the "pitchfire"
means. Double-dactyls are a splendid little form of light verse in English. The format is thus (from the good folks at wikipedia): There must be two stanzas, each comprising three lines of dactylic dimeter followed by a line with a dactyl and a single accent. The two stanzas have to rhyme on their last line. The first line of the first stanza is repetitive nonsense. The second line of the first stanza is the subject of the poem, a proper noun (usually someone's name). Note that this name must itself be double-dactylic. There is also a requirement for at least one line of the second stanza to be entirely one double dactyl word, for example "va-le-dic-tor-i-an".Lots of more examples are here. |