Long Dactyls Poems

Long Dactyls Poems. Below are the most popular long Dactyls by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Dactyls poems by poem length and keyword.


Lurched Lousy Limbs

*Lurched Lousy Limbs*

thick soles seducing
eerie earth scrunching
tracing tactic trudges
cowering cornered crushes
pale paths tucked
gaunt gaze; gulp!

mystic monster smirked
nocturnal nature athirst
felon fondling first

then a twist
lurched lousy limbs
dactyls callous covering

goblin moved monster
dragging dainty disaster.
     19:12:18:16:54

~Note~ A goblin fought with a monster who'd claimed dominance before its arrival. At the approach of the goblin, the dactyls made per the feet of the monster were covered by the enormous goblin's. The goblin at that moved the monster and then a fight ensues. A claim on dominance.
Form: Sonnet


Premium Member Iambic Pentameter

Today I’d like to talk to you about how meter plays a part in
how we write a poem and sometimes in how we speak

The above lines, which are not at all poetic, are written in a specific 
rhythm, or meter. Go back and read them again. You’ll pick up on 
the rhythm: da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, etc. (unaccented syllable, 
accented syllable, etc.) 

The meter most commonly employed in poetry is iambic pentameter: 
An iamb consists of an unaccented syllable and an accented syllable. 
“Penta” means five. Therefore, five iambs create the meter called 
iambic pentameter. Now, we’ll look at the top two lines again, this 
time dividing the words into three lines: 1. Today I’d like to talk to you 
about   2. how meter plays a part in how we write  3. a poem and some-
times in how we speak. This plain, literal language is written in the 
rhythm used in many poems—iambic pentameter.

Literary examples, followed by everyday language, all in iambic pentameter:

“That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall.” (Robert Browning)

My rubber ball went bouncing down the hall! (Yours truly)

            *****************************
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” (THE Bard)

Let’s stop and buy some gum along the way.  (Yours truly)

             ****************************

	Ask me for trochees, dactyls, anapests,
	and spondees. All will take me quite a while.
	Request tetrameter and trimeter.
	Will do! But none of these will make me smile
        like writing five neat iambs in each line.
        I most enjoy this well-established style.


August 1, 2018

Contest Title: Reads Like Music--Haibun-Look poetry contest 

Sponsor: Line Gauthier

Premium Member Just Sear and Eat

A prehistoric dragon, with a taste for Pterodactyl; 
felt a major hunger pain while penning a few dactyls.

Dropping hammer and chisel, he flew off for his hunt; 
it wasn’t long at all when, he spied himself a runt.

The tender meat, to him would be a tasty little treat 
but, runt’s fly fast and could he last till capture was complete?

His aim was great so, in he flew to the Pterodactyl nest; 
but a runt did dragon spot and it put him to a test.

Though dragon was of middle age; eight thousand years or so; 
his agility was still quite good and he gave the chase a go.

His meal once caught, he’d sear and eat; his fire was good and hot 
but, an easy catch, this little runt was not.

Its swiftness was unusual; though speed he couldn’t clock.  
He was certain he’d not slowed down but, then he smacked a rock!

Oh my, the stars that swirled around, his bruised and aching head; 
the runt was gone; dragon staggered home and lay down in his bed.

The moral of this story, have variety in your diet; 
you’ll always have enough to eat; just try it.
Form: Rhyme

Premium Member That Salad Went Right Through Me

That Salad Went Right Through Me


I've always wanted to write a poem called
“That Salad Went Right Through Me”.
And I would wager upon its best destiny:

To begin with, there is the Universal Theme--
For who has not gurgled around a conference table
at half past the last radish scrap?

Who, once stalled, has not
persistently punched the flusher
to muffle the borborygmus din?

But on a loftier note, I prefer 
to think of my paean emblazoned
in the annals of first line indexes, 
where, as one wanders lonely as a cloud 

over dactyls and tropes,
“That salad went right through me”
trots right off the page 
demanding a fervid flip to its leaf.

And future discourse plied at workshops, 
and other such rarefied privies of poesy
might thusly include:

 "Did you write a poem for the class today?"

	Yes...“That Salad Went Right Through Me”

 "Well then, you should consider the cheesecake."
© Craig Sipe  Create an image from this poem.

Premium Member Denizens: Prologue - 1

Part 1 of ?

Clippety, cloppety, clippety, cloppety
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
mounted for battle in all of their armor; they
rode off so gallantly through moors and fens.

How could they possibly know what awaited them? 
Would it have mattered, or turned them around? 
Six days out, there has been nary a sign of them, 
and not a hint of a trail to be found.

Two hundred horses do not up and vanish, and
neither do two hundred knights and their squires.
Gaining the high ground, they scan the horizon, but
naught can be seen of a help signal fire.

Clearly, they passed through this meadow some days ago;
grass is all trampled and easy to read.
There, at the edge of the forest, the trail dries up.
Here, they make camp and start looking for leads.

Scouts have been sent out, but none are returning; it’s
harder to justify as the days pass.
Finally, they find a knight barely breathing; he’s
whimpering, muttering, eyes are like glass.

There at the campfire, they bind up his wounds and they
spoon him some broth and a shot of strong ale.
When he awakens, and once he stops screaming, he
gains his composure and tells them his tale.

—————

(To be continued)

Quatrains written as dactyls in 12/10/12/10 with xAxA rhyme:
3:3:3:3x, 3:3:3:1A, 3:3:3:3x, 3:3:3:1A
© Jeff Kyser  Create an image from this poem.
Form: Quatrain


Premium Member Zephyr Oxidation

Written, March 24, 2025
For Contest,  Your Choice E sponsor, Brian Strand

            ******************
hands aegis
        sculpting lullabies
 cradling
      warmed by 
          candlelight - wax
                  flesh
                      muscle 
                
  breath
      zephyr
          exhales 
                 inaudible eulogies
      exuding oxidation
                    of
                turpentine

         nectar 
           of 
        ebony & 
               onyx
varnishes in 
                      liniment
           to coddiwomple
fingers &             
          dactyls
 tracking 
                     ectoblastic 
                                     layers

 labyrinth puddles
                  yen's fuel trigger
   perspiring
                    bruised   blooms
           quivered    reverberations
                declining
                        blossom

           obscured in
sunken strands 
of 
sprouts
&
   burial site
         effigy melting 
Inside
              silk gloves
© Sotto Poet  Create an image from this poem.
Form: Other

Dickensian Dactyl

Squickleby Pickleby
Nicholas Nickleby
loses his Father and
feels quite forlorn.

Ralph his tight uncle a
disciplinarian
mean to the marrow
regards him with scorn.

Nicholas, penniless
uncompromisingly
works as a master where
boys take the flack.

Nickleby fears for the 
safety of orphans there
rescues a cripple and
never looks back.

Granted this ending is
unsatisfactory
Dickens had plenty more
meat to this tale.

So to all readers I
send my apologies;
These double dactyls are
tricky travail.

01.01.2021

Based on the novel 'Nicholas Nickleby' by Charles Dickens

Double Dactyl (Win For Paid Membership) Poetry Contest
Sponsor : William Kekaula

They are my pristine mine!

Limerick
A fixed light-verse form of five generally anapestic lines rhyming AABBA. Edward Lear, who popularized the form, fused the third and fourth lines into a single line with internal rhyme. Limericks are traditionally bawdy or just irreverent; see “A Young Lady of Lynn” or Lear’s “There was an Old Man with a Beard.” Browse more limericks.

Anapest
A metrical foot consisting of two unaccented syllables followed by an accented syllable. The words “underfoot” and “overcome” are anapestic. Lord Byron’s “The Destruction of Sennacherib” is written in anapestic meter.

Light verse
Whimsical poems taking forms such as limericks, nonsense poems, and double dactyls. See Edward Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat” and Lewis Carroll’s “The Walrus and the Carpenter.” Other masters of light verse include Dorothy Parker, G.K. Chesterton, John Hollander, and Wendy Cope.

Drafted first

They are my pristine mine!

And I and the dwelling lullaby, a churn and a morn, tapped on tapioca moon
I and my wind catcher tinge, a chant, a hum, a mundane shenanigan , croon

They shun, they strum, they swing, on strings of the mood of poetic erotica , forever a poem and gore
As they play along with Brinjal, scalpel, or another synonym of ladies finger, those and all the more

I close my fingers , intertwined, my pristine raindrops, before a line,  else to noon!
Form: Limerick

Premium Member Would You Like To Meter

Today I feel iambic! I would say
of all the meters, I like it the best.
An iamb starts with some soft sound to say
then ev'ry second syllable is stressed.

Trochees likewise, alternate their stresses;
even-numbered syllables are muted. 
Nowhere near as popular (my guess is) -
Trochee fans, though, fervently dispute it.

Feet are the units of meter - such fun!
Dactyls have syllables STRESSED/, un-/, and un-.
"T'was the Night Before Christmas" is in Anapest:
that's a foot with three syllables: un-/, un-/, and 
  STRESSED.

The meter is the pattern of the beats within a line
"Iambic" and "Heptameter" describe this line just fine.
Anapestic Tetrameter: four anapests;
and the best part of THIS lecture series? No tests!

Trimeter has three feet
Tetrameter has just four feet
Pentameter adds one foot, making five
Hexameter adds one: six feet in this beehive
Heptameter has seven feet, but now it's getting late;
and so I'll close with this (you may have guessed): 
  Octameter has eight!

written 1 July 2023
© John Watt  Create an image from this poem.
Form: Rhyme

The Hands of the Eld Pianist Player

Strangers but loved
                aged pianist's hands
                   don't die in silence...
                 The old pianist watches
                 his hands ... learned
                 a secret... the music...
                 Even injured and with strength
                 touch still finds.
                 In silence his tips
                 dactyls hurt, suffer...
                 But the silence knows that
                 will speak in his ringtones...
                 dying toes
                 suck the last ones out of life
                sighs...
                The old pianist sweating,
                 cry dry tears...
                 But the blessed sound
                 the piano plays the music
                 holy, torn from
                 heart...

  Homage to pianist João Carlos
   Martins and his extreme pain in the
   extremities hands and fingers...

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