Baskervilles poem
Oct. 20th, 2010 05:09 pmTic(k)s
Each month with one pipette I dose my pup,
My Arthur, with some liquid Frontline Plus ™
To kill the ticks that on his blood would sup,
And induce lyme, and produce scabs and pus.
Just so, I wish, had Doyle destroyed the “tic”
That crept into a country doctor’s prose
And made what had been perfect meter sick
And made the hopeful fangirl shout, “O NOES!”
Perhaps if I had understood sprung rhythm
I would’ve done a Hopkins with these words
But since I don’t, I can do nothing with ‘em
That’s not (me-TER-ic-AL-ly) for the birds
If only in iambs did the words resound:
“They were the footprints of a giant hound!”
(Just in case you haven't memorized lines from The Hound of the Baskervilles: Dr. Mortimer says "They were the footprints of a gigantic hound!" which is most emphatically not iambic pentameter. *sigh*)
(Also, the "y" in "only" in the penultimate line should be elided with "in". I have to defend my meter. :-D)