Double Dactyl

Very, very little time to get to this today so I'll make this quick.

Here's a definition of a double dactyl.

And here's a double dactyl about Jim Morrison.

Higgledy Piggledy
James Douglas Morrison
Was he a genius?
Did he excell?
One thing is certain he,
Anticlimactically,
Died in the tub in a
Paris hotel.

And thats all for today folks I have a cultural day of galleries and theatre planned. See you tomorrow.

Villanelle

Pay attention. This is complicated.
There are quite a number of verse forms that have limited rhyming patterns and repeated lines. One such verse pattern is the Villanelle. This is how it works:

There are six stanzas.
The first five are three lines each. The sixth has four lines.
The first line of the first stanza is repeated as the third line of the second stanza, the third line of the fourth stanza and the third line of the sixth stanza.
The third line of the first stanza is repeated as the third line of the third stanza, the third line of the fifth stanza and the fourth line of the sixth stanza.
In each stanza line one and line three rhyme.
All the line twos rhyme with each other, a different rhyme to the line 1/3 rhyme.

Did you get that? Good. There may be a test later. Anyway they are an absolute bugger to write and maintain any kind of sense. Especially as, though they don’t have any defined metre, they should at least use a consistent one. This one does – iambic pentameter, which made it an even worse bugger to write.


Then and Now

We sat there, side by side, upon the beach
And watched the distant sparks of midnight flames:
A moment when we had no need of speech.

It seemed the future might lie in our reach;
We whispered secret lovers’ language names;
We sat there side by side upon the beach.

The night and fading sparks had much to teach
Of how, what happens later sometimes shames
A moment when we had no need of speech.

So many years have passed now since when, each
Describing, to the other, hoped for aims,
We sat there, side by side, upon the beach.

A bitter sermon time can sometimes preach
Of love and loss and how that loss yet blames
A moment when we had no need of speech.

Instead of thinking now upon the breach
I wonder if like me somewhere she claims:
We sat there side by side upon the beach,
A moment when we had no need of speech.

Philippines 1995: Part 10

Note: this trip was made at Christmas 1995. In the time since then I'm sure much has changed so it may not be a great idea to treat this as a guide. Treat it as a memoir, which - give or take some editing - is exactly what it is.

There was a line full of socks hanging under the overhang of the house and all that Santa had left in any of them was a toe full of dirty water. Breakfast was an unappealing mixture of rice, corned beef and peanut butter. I made do with a couple of slices of bread and some tea. Yesterday I had walked in waterproofs and still got soaked. Today the weather was worse. I decided that as it was warm and wet rather than cold and wet I would use the waterproofs to protect my rucksack and walk in my T-shirt and shorts. After all wet is wet, what difference if I start out that way or finish up that way.

The path led up a section of stone steeps that were steep and tiring and seemed to go on for hours though it was really no more than about twenty five minutes before it eventually flattened out into a dirt track that climbed slowly around the mountain. All the time the rain made everything miserable and the view was non-existent. Instead there was a featureless grey wall of fog that began about twenty feet from wherever you happened to be standing. That kind of walking is monotonous and depressing. You start off optimistically walking around the puddles, progress to fatalistically walking through puddles, briefly raise your spirits by jumping in the puddles and end up wishing you were dead. When it gets really bad you start to wonder if perhaps you are dead and this is the circle of hell reserved for ramblers.
Almost at the summit a sudden cramp pole-axed me and pitched me sideways into a muddy pool. After some very painful stretching exercises I limped painfully down the other side of the hill to a circular structure resembling a cross between a gazebo and a bus shelter where we ate our Christmas lunch of corned beef, cheese and tuna fish sandwiches - an over familiar menu. One of the locals crow-barred the padlock from a shed which turned out to be the village shop and sold us beer and gin.
After lunch a jeepney took us back to Banaue sliding with suicidal abandon down the trail that had so nearly stopped us on the way up. Two more days of rain had made it even worse and it was perhaps just as well that the plastic sides were down preventing us seeing just how dangerous it really was.

In the hotel I showered and changed into dry clothes and suddenly felt human again. After half an hour though I was feeling rain withdrawal so I pulled my wet rain gear back on and went for a walk in Banaue town. Surprisingly as it was both Sunday and Christmas Day there were a number of shops open. There were plenty of shops selling inedible looking food and cheap clothing and one or two selling jewellery and carvings at knockdown prices. The shopkeepers were doing so little trade that they were happy just to stand and chat with little or no expectation of a sale. I poked around looking at the buildings which close to looked a good deal more solid than my passing glance a few days ago had suggested. Afterwards I bought a carving and went back to the hotel for a sleep before dinner.

Clerihews: poetry for people who are really, really bad at poetry

I don’t really have much time to write today as I have lessons morning and afternoon and then need to prepare for Monday AND Wednesday because I will be out visiting a friend all day Tuesday. So, here’s a very quick form of verse that can also be used to good effect when teaching – the Clerihew. To define exactly what a Clerihew is let me just quote one – not one of my own sadly – from Paul Cookson.

Edmund Clerihew Bentley
Invited the type of poem you are reading presently,
Two comic rhyming couplets about a person where the length isn’t fixed
Then he died in nineteen fifty-six.

The whole point of Clerhiews is that they are awful. The rhymes can be off. The worse they scan, the better they are. They are supposed to be bad.


So here are some for the Rolling Stones, dashed off at such breakneck speed that the friction has made my keyboard catch fire.

Mick Jagger
All strut and swagger
The perfect mouth to be a singer
Those lips? Sink plunger? Dead ringer!

Brian Jones,
Was one of the guitarists in the Rolling Stones.
He should still be, I’ve heard it said.
But he can’t. He’s dead.

Mick Taylor,
Can’t really be thought a failure
Though it’s true he didn’t last long.
As Brian Jones’ replacement he was probably just wrong.

Ronnie Wood
Must be good
He was in once Mick Taylor was out
And he’s still about.

Charlie Watts,
Handsome? Not!
He plays the drums, not guitar or bass
And looks as if he hits them with his face.

Bill Wyman
Certainly not a shy man
He prefers his partners not too old
And he’s had thousands, so we’re told

And you’ll notice that I’ve left out Keith. That’s for the simple reason that if you can find a rhyme for Richards, even one bad enough to go in a Clerihew, then you’re better at this than I am.