Several good ones over here:
Double dactyl - Wikipedia
including my favorite about Saint Athenaseus, from Face in the Frost.
Not about anyone famous, but at work, when I learned that a local manager was leaving and heading overseas, I came up with this:
Rustonus, bustonus,
Timothy Duston is
leaving New Zealand and
heading to France.
Now that we know of his
Zealandophobia
he’d better get out while
he has the chance.
Higgledy Piggledy,
Romeo Montague,
Thought his love dead and so
Poisoned himself.
Juliet, hasty but
Eschatological,
Died lest she leave him a-
Lone on the shelf.
–Mary Ann Madden, New York Magazine
Higgledy Piggledy
Yale University
Gave up misogyny
Opened its door.
Coeducational
Extracurricular
Heterosexual
Fun is in store.
–Fred Rodell, winner of New Yorker double-dactyl competition
Higgledy Piggledy
Oedipus Tyrannos
Murdered his father, used
Mother for sex.
This mad debauch, not so
Incomprehensibly,
Left poor Jocasta and
Oepidus wrecks.
–Joan Munkacsi, New Yorker competion
History, blistery,
Antique-land traveller
Finds a stone pedestal:
“Mighty, beware!”
While round the legs and head
Ozymandiacal
Stretch the lone, level sands
Boundless and bare.
Musicat, that’s one of my all-time favorites. I just heard Beethoven’s Fifth symphony at a concert a few days ago, so I was able to recite it to my friends. One of my father’s best efforts was deemed unprintable when the book came out, for obvious reasons, but I hope it’s OK to quote it here:
Pocketa-pocketa,
Jesus of Nazareth,
Tell me, I beg of you,
How you were made.
Mother declares it was
Parthenogenisis.
I rather think that she
Must have got laid.
For what it’s worth, we had some purpose-built thread-related double dactyls in this thread resurrected in 2011, starting with Colophon’s post #86.
“Prof. Pepperwinkle” offers examples from “New Yorker” Magazine. Actually it was New York Magazine, whose great columnist Mary Ann Madden presented monthly write-in competitions well known for the wit of the competitors. See the delightful collections “Thank You for the Giant Sea Tortoise” (one of the winning entries for greeting cards for unlikely occasions), “Maybe He’s Dead” (from the “What you said/What you should have said” competition), and of course “Son of Giant Seat Tortoise.”
Just so, Steve!
One more from Thank You…
Hurkimy Lurkimy
Anton von Leeuwenhoek,
Grinding his spectacles,
Found they were strange,
Thought he’d originate
Microbiology,
Which he invented by
Changing the range.
–S. Maguire
I just remembered another one:
Higgledy Piggledy
President Jefferson
Gave up the ghost on the
Fourth of July.
So did John Adams, which
Shows that such patriots
Propagandistically
Know how to die.
As an exercise, I figured I’d do the first name or two from the Celebrity Register of 1959 that had the right meter. As it happened, the first was Marian Anderson, and I’ve done her. So…
Higgledy Piggledy
Robert B. Anderson
Now you’re the Trezh Sec. So
What does it mean?
“Staying on course while e-
Vading the traps with my
Eisenhoverian
Eye for the green.”
And…
Jiggery Pokery
William R. Anderson*
Sailed his sub under the
North pole because
Nucleonautical
Strategy hinges on
Whether or not there’s a
Sanity clause.
- The Wikipedia article omits the middle initial.
Nice to see you here, Streetsinger. I think we exchanged e-mails once a few internet identities ago.
Higgledy piggledy
Ben Shalom Bernanke
Running the Federal
Reserve Bank today.
Isn’t that much of a
Keynesian follower;
Iconoclastically
Following Che.
Spockery mockery
Stephanie Zimbalist
Opened the agency
“Remington Steele”.
Pierce Brosnan carried it
Rom-com-dramatically,
But he was a con man,
A cad and a heel.
Squatchelty, batchelty,
Old Roger Patterson
Caught on film, something
In darkest NorCal;
Subject’s identity,
None have established it –
Predictability
Says, no-one e’er shall.
Thinking about “abominable snowmen and associated stuff”, suggested another one.
Himmalay, wimmalay,
Sir Edmund Hillary
With Tensing, climbed Everest,
That venturesome pair;
Asked why they’d done this thing,
Ed replied breezily,
“Self-evidentially,
'Cos it was there !”
Two from years past, the first one’s really dated:
Tiddley quiddley
Edward M. Kennedy
Quite unaccountably
Drove in a stream.
Pleas of amnesia
Incomprehensible
Possibly shattered
Political dream.
Chivalry, shmivalry!
Roger the thief has a
Method he uses for
Sneaky attacks.
Those who are reading are
Quite unaccountably
Always forgetting to
Guard their own ba…
I was sorry to read in the New York Times today that John Hollander, who co-wrote the first book of double dactyls, has just died. It would be nice to write a commemorative double dactyl in his honor–it’s too bad his first name wasn’t really Jonathan. Jonathan Hollander would have made a fine double dactyl. Still, he had a PhD, so I suppose he qualifies as “Dr. John Hollander.”
P.S.–Hi, AppallingGael
Morning time, mourning time
“Doctor John Hollander,”
(He of the dactylic
Poetry fame) –
Someone said, grievously,
“Passed away recently.”
Quite unashamedly:
Drink to his name!
Colander, Bolander
Jonathan Hollander
Incomprehensibly
Just passed away.
Even, though alien,
Sesquipedalian
Poets will guide us and
Show us the way.
Nice!