The Cow is Mad! Part Two

As I said last week, I’m not talking about mad cow disease, I’m talking about the Mad Cow and Mad Calf poetry forms, invented by Sebastian “Duke” Delorange. I tried to look him up online, but all I could find out about him is that he’s American.

Last week I shared the Mad Calf, which is clearly the easier of the two. So this week I had no choice but to make good on my promise to Share the Mad Cow form. Clearly, I need to watch what I promise. There was a reason I’ve put this form off so long.

This poem is a whopping 35 lines long, written as a series of 7 cinquains (five-line verses). These lines are 12 syllables long, which make it a hefty poem indeed. The rhyme scheme is: ababc cdede fgfgh hijij klklm mnono eieio. And just to make it more fun, it should have a pastoral setting.

The EIEIO is what gives the Mad Cow its name. It’s referring back to the children’s song, “Old MacDonald’s Farm” where the farmer had a cow (among other farm animals).

I’m going to be up front here, I hate 12 syllable lines. They make my teeth itch. And you will notice I did not use a pastoral setting for my example.


Living Forever

If you were given the chance to live forever
Would you take the offer given or turn away?
Think upon on this peculiar endeavor
This is not an offer that is made every day.
It would be unwise to dismiss it out of hand

Because this is an offer straight out of dreamland.
Before accepting I would consider the source,
Is it beatific, malefic, or between?
Is this really something you can fully endorse –
Will it stain your soul black or can you keep it clean?

But think what it would be like to live forever
To never have the fear of death, or of dying
To live the history that makes you so clever
Living such a life could be so gratifying
It has a certain appeal, wouldn’t you agree?

I wonder if such a life would make one carefree.
Would the passing of time have any meaning still;
Would the minutes and hours seem to go slow or fast?
Or would one day bleed into another until
All of the days are gone and eternity’s passed?

Imagine, if you will, the things that you would see
If forever you lived, until the end of days –
The magic and wonder of all the things to be,
Or maybe you’d be witness to the world ablaze
And observe mankind’s inevitable downfall.

In the weighing of the good and bad, overall,
All the pros and cons don’t really matter as much
As what is in your heart and how you really feel.
To watch your loved ones die, never feeling their touch
Would, to me, be somewhat of an achilles’ heel.

I would live forever, but only in dreamland.
But a dream is not something that someone can force.
It does not conform, bow to the dreamer’s command,
But in your dreams you can live forever, of course,
And perhaps that’s all anyone needs to be real.