And the Gaunt Bailiff

Chorus from Oedipus at Colonos
Anthony Hecht

What is unwisdom but the lusting after
Longevity: to be old and full of days!
For the vast and unremitting tide of years
Casts up to view more sorrowful things than joyful;
And as for pleasures, once beyond our prime,
They all drift out of reach, they are washed away.
And the same gaunt bailiff calls upon us all.
Summoning into Darkness, to those wards
Where is no music, dance, or marriage hymn
That soothes or gladdens. To the tenements of Death.

Not to be born is, past all yearning, best.
And second best is, having seen the light.
To return at once to deep oblivion.
When youth has gone, and the baseless dreams of youth,
What misery does not then jostle man's elbow,
Join him as a companion, share his bread?
Betrayal, envy, calumny and bloodshed
Move in on him, and finally Old Age--
Infirm, despised Old Age--joins in his ruin,
The crowning taunt of his indignities.

So is it with that man, not just with me.
He seems like a frail jetty facing North
Whose pilings the waves batter from all quarters;
From where the sun comes up, from where it sets,
From freezing boreal regions, from below,
A whole winter of miseries now assails him,
Thrashes his sides and breaks over his head.

Make Mine a Double

Long-short-short, long-short-short
Dactyls in dimeter,
Verse form with choriambs
(Masculine rhyme):

One sentence (two stanzas)
Hexasyllabically
Challenges poets who
Don't have the time.

It's been serious around here. Had you noticed? It's time to lighten things and Roger L. Robison's is an excellent introduction to the shape of my mood. I'm feeling dactylic and no properly improper dactyl goes about as a singleton. I realise that this lapse into sillitude may offend some. For those who need things sombre, please return tomorrow, when I am almost certain to be bleak (or serious) again. In the meantime, in the Dactyl Room (unlike the Haiku Studio), the door is the thing with hinges. Please open it slowly. When sped, it squeaks.

Blame Paul Pascal and (Pulitzer Prize winner) Anthony Hecht for the invention of this higgledy piggledy form. In 1961, presumably having nothing better to do with a patch of goofy time, they constructed the double dactyl.

As you're here, have a few. They're served both on the rocks and neat. You may determine which is which.

Point of View
by Anthony Hecht

Higgledy-piggledy,
Marcus Aurelius,
Guiding his life by a
Stark rule of thumb,

Garnered the nickname of
"Impermeabile"--
Meaning both "Stoic," and,
Possibly, "dumb."


No Foundation
by John Hollander

Higgledy-piggledy
John Simon Guggenheim,
Honored wherever the
Muses collect,

Save in the studies (like
Mine) which have suffered his
Unjustifiable,
Shocking neglect.


Another Hollander and further neglect:

Appearance & Reality

Higgledy-piggledy
Josephine Bonaparte,
Painted by Prud'hon with
Serious mien:

Sorrow? Oh, hardly. Just
Cosmetological
Prudence (her teeth were a
Carious green.)


The Supernatural
Anonymous

Spookety Flookety
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Spoke to some spirits
And wrote what they said.

Some cynics I have known
Think he should write his own
Autobiography
Now that he’s dead.


(Grab a dictionary.)


Iliad
Diane Svarlien

Higgledy-Piggledy
Peleus' progeny
Filled up with Rage at his
Army and king;
Now of his canine- and
Aviannutritive
Multihellenicide
Please, goddess, sing.


(You now may shelve the book.)

What Svarlian began, let Anthony Hackard end:

Graciously, Greciously
Thetis's Peliad
Got Hector's Trojan face
Caught on a wheel;
Later he quietly
Antiheroic'lly
Suffered a fate most be-
Fitting a heel.



Rough Weather
Kevin Durkin

Higgledy-piggledy
Charles A. Lindbergh flew
over the ocean as
fast as he could,

pelted by rain, sleet, snow
head winds and winds below.
Meteorology
did him no good.

As you're still here, you might as well consider the McWhirtle, concocted in 1989 by Bruce Newling. (The silliness stream floods widely.) Here's a sample by the Kenn Nesbitt. Before you read it, get the dactyl stress pattern out of your head -- if you can.

Fernando the Fearless

We're truly in awe of
Fernando the Fearless
who needed no net
for the flying trapeze.

Alas, what a shame
it's surprisingly difficult
catching a bar
in the midst of a sneeze.