The Cow is Mad!

No, 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.

Because I spent so much time on the research, I ran short of time so I’m going to start with the Mad Calf because it’s the shorter and simpler of the two forms. :-)

The Mad Calf is a 20 line poem made up of 4 cinquains (5 line verses). Each line has 6 syllables. The Mad Calf has fewer lines and fewer syllables than the Mad Cow, and it doesn’t really rhyme until the last stanza. The rhyme scheme is: abcde fghij klmno eieio.

EIEIO, like in the kid’s song “Old MacDonald Had a Farm,” get it? Okay, okay, on to my example. But first, I have a confession to make.

When I write poems that are strict in their syllable count, I often use an online syllable counter. There is one line in the following poem that two different syllable counters insisted was seven syllables long, but it’s not. Which only goes to show you that syllable counters, like grammar checkers, are not infallible. Also, one of the lines is only five syllables, but it just didn’t sound right with six so I’m leaving it.


Fae Bells

A full moon rides the sky
above the fairy glen,
limns the trees with silver
and lights the unseen path
for the Fae caravan.

Magic in the nightfall
and in the music too,
magic in the dancing,
celebrating summer
as only the Fae can.

Crystal flutes play sweetly,
bodhrans keep the beat;
silks and satins swirling
as dancers turn and spin.
Joyous voices singing.

Beyond the fields of man,
you can hear the drummer –
that’s how the dance began.
You know it’s midsummer
when Fae bells are ringing.