Tim--Got sidetracked on the other thread. Some examples Traditional and Contemporary in an Iambic or accentual Dimeter.

One of mine here, iambic dimeter:


At Trader Vic’s,
A tiki bar,
A lady picks
A tacky jar
Of witch’s brew,
With parasols.
Now watch her spew
The alcohols.

I won't pretend this poem of mine is any good, but it's in dimeter so I'll post it to help get things started. Obviously, dimeter is a rather constraining meter to write in, and villanelles are a constraining form, so have some pity. Better poems are sure to follow as the thread develops:

SPEAKING ONLY FOR MYSELF

I don’t like pain,
but then, who does?
I’m not insane

when I complain.
It’s just because
I don’t like pain.

As normal a brain
as there ever was,
I’m not insane

and will not feign.
Among my flaws:
I don’t like pain

or think that gain
must keep its laws.
I’m not insane.

Let others strain
to praise sharp claws.
I don’t like pain.
I’m not insane.

Bob, your poem reminds me that pain causes insanity ;).
Well, this isn't the place for crits (or else I might mention your penultimate stanza as being the easily improvable one), so here are a few quick copy and pastes from my Soon to be Submitted (But Where?) File:

Luigi Pirandello
did not care for yellow;
he rushed to and fro
if one ordered Pernod.

Federico Garcia Lorca
was allergic to pork; a
faulty diagnosis
said he had trichinosis.

Frank R. O’Hara
kept his date with samsara;
it’s when sleeping on beaches
that a poet overreaches.

Beatle John Lennon
studied his zen an’
soon understood Yoko
had always been loco.

Neil Young
was coming unstrung.
All of his back-ups
were headed for crack-ups.

Federico Garcia Lorca
wrote a play in Majorca
in which Salvador Dali
played an ingénue in Bali.

Emmett Grogan
erected a Hogan
built out of granola
and rose hips acerola.

Morgan Le Fay
made a fast getaway
when an innocent idyll
ended up homicidal.

Mad Monk Rasputin
could digest only gluten;
to serve him a shashlik
was rash and impolitic.

Terese

Terese, I'm sure you noted that a couple of your clerihews are not in dimeter, as no particular meter is required for a clerihew. I have not done many dimetric poems, though I have one over at The Deep End now. Dimeters seem to me especially good for faster-paced pieces, and they can better expose your best phrases.

W/G

[This message has been edited by Golias (edited January 10, 2003).]

Although I don't employ it nearly as often as I do ballad stanza or trimeter, I've written tons of dimeter. This is probably my most successful attempt. Carolina Quarterly characterized it as Murphy's epigrammatic Paradise Lost, and it is identical in stanza with Frost's The Dust of Snow and with Hardy's The Wound, with which I began the loose iambics thread.

The Expulsion

Six weeks of drought,
the corn undone
and wheat burned out
by the brazen sun:

over that land
an angel stands
with an iron brand
singeing his hands.

I write in dimeter not infrequently. I find it a very compelling meter, that often has a lot of energy.

This piece is accentual dimeter until the end, when I deliberately changed in order to change the energy.

"Put the kettle on, Eliza - Miz Autumn's back in town"

Autumn blew in
with a gust of wind

scattering leaves
like careless kisses.
"Missus Maria -
How grand to see ya!
How long has it been?
A year? My dear!
The places I've seen!"

She rustles and bustles.
"I can't settle, yet --
now don't worry, pet:
I'll be back at your place
once I've put on my face,

and we'll have ourselves a veritable confabulation,
with mulled cider, warm rugs, and Turkish Delight
through all the lengthening nights
until Winter.

Dimeters are not that constraining (except in villanelles),
and they are wonderful when they're wonderful, as in that
(very loose) dimeter poem of Larkin's, and in poem after poem of Hardy's--I'll list a few of his dimeter masterpieces:
Lonely Days, The Moon Looks In, Timing Her, Lament, I Need Not Go, and--best of all (it would be my nomination for best poem in dimeters in the English language, maybe in any language ---To Lizbie Browne. ( And I've mentioned just some of his best ones, there are others.)

Golias

Yes, I noticed after posting that there's no way Lorca's full name can be construed as dimeter, even when saying it quite fast! Ditto the ingenue line, but I was busy and left them up. My apologies, G! ;) Ya got me there.

Indeed,Bob, "Lizbie Browne," which can be read simply by entering "lizbie" at either AltaVista or Google, is a most endearing poem in dimeter. However, my all-time favorite remains "The Bridge of Sighs" by Thomas Hood. It made me weep up as a youth and it still evokes a tear and a sigh. In Venice one may often pass the spot where Hood's drowned, unknown girl would have been laid to await identification. It's not right by the Bridge of Sighs, but upon the Bridge of Straw below, from which one views the Bridge of Sighs.

ONE more Unfortunate,
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death!

Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care;
Fashion'd so slenderly
Young, and so fair!

Look at her garments
Clinging like cerements;
Whilst the wave constantly
Drips from her clothing;
Take her up instantly,
Loving, not loathing.

Touch her not scornfully;
Think of her mournfully,
Gently and humanly;
Not of the stains of her,
All that remains of her
Now is pure womanly.

Make no deep scrutiny
Into her mutiny
Rash and undutiful:
Past all dishonour,
Death has left on her
Only the beautiful.

Still, for all slips of hers,
One of Eve's family—
Wipe those poor lips of hers
Oozing so clammily.

Loop up her tresses
Escaped from the comb,
Her fair auburn tresses;
Whilst wonderment guesses
Where was her home?

Who was her father?
Who was her mother?
Had she a sister?
Had she a brother?
Or was there a dearer one
Still, and a nearer one
Yet, than all other?

Alas! for the rarity
Of Christian charity
Under the sun!
O, it was pitiful!
Near a whole city full,
Home she had none.

Sisterly, brotherly,
Fatherly, motherly
Feelings had changed:
Love, by harsh evidence,
Thrown from its eminence;
Even God's providence
Seeming estranged.

Where the lamps quiver
So far in the river,
With many a light
From window and casement,
From garret to basement,
She stood, with amazement,
Houseless by night.

The bleak wind of March
Made her tremble and shiver;
But not the dark arch,
Or the black flowing river:
Mad from life's history,
Glad to death's mystery,
Swift to be hurl'd—
Anywhere, anywhere
Out of the world!

In she plunged boldly—
No matter how coldly
The rough river ran—
Over the brink of it,
Picture it—think of it,
Dissolute Man!
Lave in it, drink of it,
Then, if you can!

Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care;
Fashion'd so slenderly,
Young, and so fair!

Ere her limbs frigidly
Stiffen too rigidly,
Decently, kindly,
Smooth and compose them;
And her eyes, close them,
Staring so blindly!

Dreadfully staring
Thro' muddy impurity,
As when with the daring
Last look of despairing
Fix'd on futurity.

Perishing gloomily,
Spurr'd by contumely,
Cold inhumanity,
Burning insanity,
Into her rest.—
Cross her hands humbly
As if praying dumbly,
Over her breast!

Owning her weakness,
Her evil behaviour,
And leaving, with meekness,
Her sins to her Saviour!

A Wish to Comply

Did I see it go by,
That Millikan mote?
Well, I said that I did.
I made a good try.
But I'm no one to quote.
If I have a defect
It's a wish to comply
And see as I'm bid.
I rather suspect
All I saw was the lid
Going over my eye.
I honestly think
All I saw was a wink.

Robert Frost

Golias--

Thomas Hood
Is really pretty good.
But compared to the greatest Thomas
He merely shows promise.

I like the Bridge of Sighs well enough, but comparable to Lizbie Browne?? (Well, as my old friend Henri Coulette used to say, That's horse racing.)

Terese--
Since my only claim to fame is as a clerihewist (and I modestly think I'm the best since Chesterton & Bentley),
I feel compelled to say, 1) that your clerihews shouldn't
be confined to dimeter--much of the fun of the form depends on the free lines, though of course they have to sound right; 2) the trouble with your samples is that they are not funny enough; and 3) the rhymes need to be funnier, AND
they must be exact, not merely close, AND they can't seem strained for, as some of yours do seem to be. I'll copy out six of my voluminous production, the six I think the best
and funniest, as examples of what I mean:

Charles Bukowski
Could never find his housekey,
But being a total souse
He was lucky just to find his house.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Was a very strange crietzsche:
He dreamt of mounting a little wench
And screamaing, "Ubermensch!"

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Had more on his mind than his belly.
One can only take pity on
The author of Epipsychidion.

John Dryden
Never looked for a hole to hide in.
Did he run away from MacFlecknoe?
Heck, no.'

Oscar Wilde
Was most unjustly reviled:
Merely for loving his neighbor
He got two years' hard labor.

Johann Sebastian Bach
At 2 a.m. sighed, "Ach,
Bring me some coffee, I gotta
Finish a cantata."

(Well, I can't resist--one more.)

Marianne Moore
Was prim and rather dour,
Not at all the sort of poetess
You might interest in coitus.


Now, you don't have to like them, but they are very good
specimens of the form.

Robert

Your clerihews made me laugh! They're excellent.

I've written clerihews in other meters as well. Thanks for the pointers: I'll probably return to the form again at some point.

Others have said they found the Rasputin, the O'Hara, and the Lorca/Dali clerihews, in particular, amusing...I'm sorry you didn't. Everyone's sense of humor is so individual.

Terese

Auden was a good clerihewist, but Robert is a great one! I think the trick is to come up with rhymes which are as unpredictable as they are inevitable. Let me demonstrate that inevitability with a good story. Alfred Nicol was driving Rhina and me back from a reading I'd given, and we fell to clerihewing. I quoted

Edmund Clerihew Bentley
was a modest man, evidently,
the only man whose claim to fame
resides in his middle name.

I attributed it to Bob, and Alfred said "You haven't quite got it right, and that's by me, not Mezey." Sure enough I'd seen Alfred's poem in The Formalist. And read Bob's poem in his Collected. Here's Bob's version:

Edmund Clerihew Bentley
was literary, evidently,
but his chief claim to fame
is his middle name.

Now this is not a case of plagiarism, folks. Each of these very funny men wrote damn near the same poem. Inevitably!

My favorite dimeter poem, I think, must be:


The Fly
by William Blake

Little Fly
Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand
Has brush'd away.

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

For I dance
And drink & sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life
And strength & breath,
And the want
Of thought is death;

Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live,
Or if I die.

Forgot that one, Roger--a wonderful example. I've rather
cooled on Blake over the years, but that always seems to me one of the great poems. That, and "London"

When I was first starting to read poetry, this was one of my favorites and still is. It's a little tick-tocky, but the statement is quite profound. Cunningham wrote a number of dimeter poems, but this is indubitably his best.

Meditation on Stastical Method

Plato, despair!
We prove by norms
How numbers bear
Empiric forms,

How random wrong
Will average right
If time be long
Error slight,

But in our hearts
Hyperbole
Curves and departs
To infinity.

Error is boundless.
Nor hope nor doubt,
Though both be groundless,
Will average out.

A very good Cunningham, yes, but I think there's an even better one in dimeters.

FOR MY CONTEMPORARIES

How Time reverses
The proud in heart!
I now makes verses
Who aimed at art.

But I sleep well.
Ambitious boys
Whose big lines swell
With spiritual noise,

Despise me not,
And be not queasy
To praise somewhat:
Verse is not easy.

But rage who will.
Time that procured me
Good sense and skill
Of madness cured me.

Ah, professor, we could argue for some time, but I prefer the "Meditation", mainly because it shows that Cunningham had a power of phrasing that extended beyond the epigrammatical and invective poem. But "To My Contemporaries" is still excellent.

Dimeter is a blast. A differentiation between our Beowulf and the others is that rather than translate 3200 lines of tetrameter, we observed the medial caesurae and translated 6400 dimeters. As I collapsed on the message table Tuesday morning, for my Columbian medicine man to pound on my back, Fernando, a fanatical fisherman recited one of mine.

I what my hoook
beneath a pine,
than weeth a sweesh
I loff my line
offer a broook
off sparkleen wine.
Comb, leetle feesh
an we weel dine.

Outside the coils of amour, I have never been so honored in a position so prone.

I have attempted dimeter only once and wasn't very happy with the result, but I will post it for whatever reaction it will get.

Saint Shakespeare

When I was young
and ripe, and wore
my hemlines high
and necklines low,
a bald man at
a party saw
a trinket on
a silver chain,
which rested in
the valley that
two hills contain--
and leaning in
for a good look
"Is that a saint's
medal?" he guessed.
I answered yes.

Tim M.,

I've never fished but have long been a fan of the dimeter recited by your fishing masseur (although I remember it a bit differently).

Clerihews are fun. One of mine:

William Jefferson Clinton
Left something other than lint on
Monica's blue gown
Yet only she went down.

Great Clerihew, Kevin. We had a big discussion of them on one of the Mezey threads. Thanks, Epigone, I suspect the version you know goes:

To a Trout

I whet my hook
beneath a pine,
then with a swish
I loft my line
over a brook
of sparkling wine.
Come little fish,
and we will dine.

Pretty good dimeter, sound sense of line, Susan, but it cries out for rhymes to bind it together. Start with abcb, then when you're really in the groove, go to abab or abba. As for abcbabcb? Don't try it at home.

I'm with Tim on the rhyme, Susan--but it'll be an enjoyable task.

I've written one poem in dimeter--and then only as an entry in a contest that called for a poem longer than I like to write. I was so embarrassed by its length when it was accepted for a magazine that I suggested the editor print it as tetrameter couplets. He didn't, but when I put it in my book I did, to save space (cheeseparing Yankee that I am).

Yours is the right length.

I've enjoyed reading through this thread.

I love working in dimeter, and am probably dangerously close to doing so too much. It often feels like pulling on an old pair of jeans that start off a little snug, then begin to loosen -- just enough. One keeps reaching for them again and again. Such a tiny meter, so flexible !
And I think rhyme always helps at the seams.

Susan, I agree with the comments above re: your poem requiring some end rhyme to show off its swing.
Definitely worth the time it would take.

Here's a silly pair I've posted before to the Deep End, which I include here just for fun. The second blends itself with some other meters, but still reads dimeter to me.

Whodunnit

She's pretty sure
that it was her,
but properly
it would be she
who knew the score
and left the door
slightly ajar --
wish on a star !

The lights grow dim.
So does she.
It wasn't him,
nor was it he.

.

Accessory to the Crime

It's clear to me
this poem has thrust
and verve
and hospitality

and depth, and wit --
a vision, this,
I writ
the thing posthumously --

and I daresay
when I adjust
to fame
and immortality

I'll write a song
that hasn't got
a spot
of dust or mystery,

where he is he,
and she is she,
and love
is never history.