According to Wikipedia:
Cadae is an experimental Western poetry form similar to the Fib. While the Fib is based on the Fibonacci sequence, the cadae is based on the number Pi. The word “cadae” is the alphabetical equivalent of the first five digits of Pi, 3.1415.
The form of a cadae is based on Pi on two levels. There are five stanzas, with 3, 1, 4, 1, and 5 lines each, respectively for a total of fourteen lines in the poem. Each line of the poem also contains an appropriate number of syllables. The first line has three syllables, the second has one, the third has four, and so on, following the sequence of Pi as it extends infinitely.
The following description and example are reposted from thebakerypoetry.com (site no longer accessible).
As a name, cadae is the alphabetical equivalent to the first five digits of the transcendental number pi (3.1415…). Pi, often represented as π, is a mathematical constant that is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter approximately equal to the number 3.14 or, to fourteen places, 3.1415926535897. In poetry, these numbers have been applied to line and stanza lengths, resulting in, yet again, a cross between haiku and sonnet.
Here’s an example:
Butterfly
lands
on butterfly
bush.
A starving man eats
maggots, dies. When two days later he
is found
new maggots have begun
hatching in his mouth.
Which image
will you take to bed
like a lover for the first time
touching and turning it all through night?
Which will be there when you wake?
My Example
Cadae
Read It Anyway
I try to
write
what people will
read.
Often times I fail.
Frequently I get carried away
by all
the constraints of a form,
become didactic
in the cause,
lose all pretense of
using poetic devices,
and end up with something that only
few folks will willingly read.
© Lawrencealot – February 10, 2015