Miscellany #1: Double Dactyls

My latest obsession is the double dactyl, a poetic form that combines whimsy, triviality, and an appreciation of solid poetic meter. You can look up the full rules on Wikipedia, but should know that a double dactyl always takes as its subject a single name that fits double-dactylic meter: DUM-da-da-DUM-da-da. Which... is a surprising number of names! Once you start noticing them, you can't stop: if inspired, feel free to write your own double dactyls about Timothée Chalamet. Or William Lloyd Garrison. Or Czechoslovakia. Or Indianapolis...

These are pop-culture double dactyls, which is a good place to start (I've seen a lot of good Lord of the Rings-based ones.) I've been trying to write one about Gilgamesh Gilgamesh, the antediluvian, Mesopotamian hero, but it hasn't come together yet:

Witchery-ditchery
Geralt of Rivia
Raising a child and
cursing his luck,

Everyone else in this
show’s so verbose while he’s
monosyllabically
muttering, “Fuck.

 

“Pictures of Spider-Man!”
J. Jonah Jameson’s
stuck in an industry
practically dead,

Readership’s dwindling
(incontrovertibly);
Maybe the Bugle should
pivot to web.

 

Higgledy-piggledy
Benedict Cumberbatch
bonafide star all the
studios bank;

Incomprehensible
extraterrestrial
charm; just don’t ask him to
sound like a Yank.