Tag Archives: gmcookie

Choriambic dactylic fusion

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This is a complex accentual-syllabic form invented by Glenn Meisenheimer writing on Allpoetry.com as gmcookie.

The Choriambic dactylic fusion is:
Stanzaic, consisting of any number of quatrains.
Each stanza is rhymed: (a/a)x(b/b)x, where x is unrhymed, and the letters
within parentheses indicate internal rhyme with the end word.
Each stanza is metered:
L1 and L1 are choriambic dimeter. A choriamb is a trochee followed by an iamb, thus DUM da da DUM.
L2 is catelectic dactylic tetrameter, thus [DUM da da] [DUM da da] [DUM da da] [DUM da ^]
* catalectic:  (kăt′l-ĕk′tĭk) adj.  adj. Lacking one or more syllables especially in the final foot.
L4 is catelectic dactylic trimeter, thus [DUM da da] [DUM da da] [DUM ^ ^]

This should all be made clear by the visual template below.

Here is the inventor’s first poem using this form:

Goblins

Pounding away day after day,
Prying the gold from the heart of the mountain,
Digging the ore, searching for more,
That’s what the goblins all do.

When it gets dark time to embark,
Crawling from holes to the moon lighted surface,
Patter of feet, hunting for meat,
Deep in the darkening woods.

Man child is best, troublesome pest,
Juicy and tender when stewed or when roasted,
Rabbits are nice, deer will suffice,
Partridge or grouses will too.

Then they are gone just before dawn
Scurrying back to their home in the darkness,
Digging the ore, searching for more,
That’s what the goblins all do.

Pasted from <http://allpoetry.com/poem/11855944-Goblins-by-gmcookie>

My example

Gallivanting (Form: Choriambic dactylic fusion)

Riding the rails, sleeping in jails
youth was misspent if consensus is taken.
Sleeping in tents, riding the fence
these were the acts that he loved.

Going on hikes, riding on bikes
Travel was far more important than where to.
Seeing how life coped with it’s strife,
building himself on the fly.

Seas that he’d sail hunting for whale
toughened him up and exposed him to drinking,
planning to chase ladies in lace,
gambling with dice and with cards.

Hunting for gold, campsites were cold
metals he learned to decipher by looking.
Scattered around, wonders were found
When and wherever he went.

Filled up with life, finding a wife
knowing the place where he started was dandy,
he raised some kids, yep, that he did
here at the end of the line.

© Lawrencealot – January 15, 2015

Visual template

Choriambic dactylic fusion

Meisenheimer’s Sestet

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This form was created by Glenn Meisenheimer, aka gmcookie on Allpoetry.
It is stanzaic consisting of two or more sestet stanzas.
It is syllabic, each stanza being a sestet of 11/8/11/11/11/8 syllables.
It is metrical, with the long lines consisting of three anapestic feet and an iamb, and each short line consisting of two anapestic feet and an iamb.
Rhyme pattern:  xabbba
My Example
April 7th Phone Call     (Meisenheimer’s Sestet)
And what was the promise that went unfulfilled,
and why did it happen like that?
You promised to cherish, to love and obey
I promised the same yet you left me one day
and none of my pleas could persuade you to stay
so home with my two boys I sat.
But one time you tried to rejoin me and them;
by then I was slightly involved.
I’d promised another to be her escort
one day to a wedding as symbol of sorts.
I’d told you I’d promised and could not abort-
one day! then the problem’d be solved.
One day was too much for your too needy heart
I think you’d expected I’d stay
and forget a promise for now things were changed.
I couldn’t and wouldn’t get things rearranged
so after a month we were newly estranged.
You took our girls; you went away.
And what was the promise that went unfulfilled,
that caused you to call me last night?
You’re dying and know it and facing the end,
have mem’ries to reckon with, fences to mend.
You know I still love you and think you my friend.
I wish that could make it alright.
© Lawrencealot – April 8, 2014
Visual Template

Pentibrach

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It is so named because of the unique metric foot proposed by its creator Glenn Meisenheimer, known on Allpoetry as gmcookie.
He proposed a five syllable metric foot with only the center syllable being accented.  Because of its resemblance to an amphibrach with an unaccented syllable affixed to each end, I named this the pentibrach.   If scholars find a precedent we will of course bow to an established usage.
The poem is stanzaic, consisting of at least two quatrains.
It is syllabic: 10/9/10/7
It uses external rhyme, rhyming the last line of each stanza. (xxxa)
I realize there are alternative options to provide a metric schema, but I shall use the authors own presentation, and define here the metric feet to be used:
The pentibrach:             da da DUM da da
The secundus paeon:    da DUM da da
The iamb:                        da DUM
Each stanza is formed thus:
L1 & L3      two pentibrach feet
L2               a pentibrach followed by a secundus paeon
L4               a pentibrach followed by an iamb
The author’s original poem.
Kandahar
As the shadows fall and the daylight fades
And the owl flirts with the whippoorwill,
In that twilight time when the nightingale
Sings his love songs to the stars,
You will find me here in the umbral dark
As I wend through trees and monuments,
In the gloaming dusk when the sunlight fades
And when Jupiter joins Mars.
It is only then, from this cursed ground,
There is strength in my soliloquy,
As I raise my voice on the evening breeze
And I sing my ghost-thin bars.
It’s an ancient tune yet a timely one
Of a sailor washed ashore near here
Who was buried deep in this Christian soil
Far away from Kandahar.
My Attempt at one:
Entranced     (Pentibrach)
As she stretched her arms to the morning’s dim
and her curvature delighted me
 I assumed that I’m just a blessed guy
who was honored here by chance.
The is nothing that would predict that I
should be met on earth by goddesses
or be catered to by the likes of her.
Don’t disturb me from this trance.
© Lawrencealot – February 15, 2014
Visual Template