An Alphabetical Adventure

By Rhys Hughes

I have long been interested in unusual rhyme schemes, especially if they have a pleasing mathematical pattern. Deciding to attempt an ambitious rhyme scheme unlike any other, I produced the following poem. Regarded as a whole, the poem relies on chain rhymes, with a linking rhyme carrying over from one stanza into the next one. Thus, the rhyme scheme is AABAA, BBCBB, CCDCC, DDEDD, EEFEE and so on until ZZAZZ, which completes the loop. This means that for every word at the end of every line there are four other words at the ends of other lines that rhyme with it. I was careful to ensure that no types of rhyme were duplicated, so the progression from A to Z is authentic. After the poem was finished, I discovered to my surprise that my rhyme scheme was quite similar to one that  already had a name, the ‘virelai ancien’, and a respected history.

AABAA
It happened on a rainy day
when I was strolling through the grey
curling mists that hid each tree
I soon enough lost my way
and what remains for me to say?

BBCBB
Not a lot, you will agree,
and as a practical insight this is key
therefore I kept wandering on
deeper into the illusory sea
of thickening fog that shrouded me.

CCDCC
I stretched my neck out like a swan
and crooned an old wayfarer’s song
and snapping a branch from a trunk
I beat my stomach like a gong
and not once thought it very wrong.

DDEDD
You might suspect that I was drunk
but I was as sober as a monk
and yet the boom of my belly flaps
summoned strangers as they shrunk
like dinner guests who are in a funk.

EEFEE
And why in funk were those chaps?
They were ghosts swathed in wraps,
forest phantoms who died long ago
caught in the jaws of various traps
who expired after the first collapse.

FFGFF
They lined up before me in a row
opening their mouths very slow
expecting food that they could chew
thanks to each beating note so low
that called them with an urgent blow.

GGHGG
The fault was mine, yes that’s true
and now I was jostled by this crew
of ghouls and spectres immaterial,
my unmoving limbs stuck with glue
as if fear’s an adhesive turgid brew.

HHIHH
I broke the spell with a great yell
and turned to escape from this hell
but one of the ghosts held me back
and advised me all my fears to quell
or else I might make myself unwell.

IIJII
And now all my limbs did go slack
while my nerves began to crack
for I trusted not that phantom brute,
no more than I might trust a quack
dressed not as a doctor but in a sack.

JJKJJ
“Sir, your terror appears to be acute
but please relax for it’s more astute,”
the phantom said with a twisted grin.
He meant no harm although destitute
of bones and flesh worn like a suit.

KKLKK
“What do you want?” I implored him
and in response he lifted up a limb
and made a gesture most mysterious
as if touching an invisible hat’s brim,
a mark of respect to a man named Tim.

LLMLL
For yes, that is my name, I am serious,
on no account have I become delirious
and I continue to insist ‘Tim’ is alright
as a cognomen neither very imperious
nor in any manner judged deleterious.

MMNMM
“Our rotten bodies were our birthright
but now forever more lost to our sight,
lonely we are in this transparent form,
very melancholy in our present plight,”
replied the ghost who might be a sprite.

NNONN
“How can I help you to feel less forlorn
or at least assist your sadness to warm
and thaw itself until into liquid it melts,
into teardrops as pungent as chloroform
that evaporates and is gone by dawn?”

OOPOO
That was the question that ancient Celts
might have asked when tightening belts
in preparation for the Roman invasion,
but I vocalised it now at the ghostly pelts
that scarred my sanity like whiplash welts.

PPQPP
“Amuse us with a dance on this occasion,”
they answered rapidly without evasion,
and I suppose they expected me to decline,
but as it happens I need little persuasion
to begin dancing, although I am Caucasian.

QQRQQ
Having taken lessons, my dancing is fine,
also in good time my steps usually align,
and so I waltzed with an imaginary friend
and the ghosts were no longer saturnine
in demeanour as they followed in a line.

RRSRR
Both straight ahead and around the bend,
I propelled myself fast, you may depend,
hoping to shake off my spectral entourage
for the rest of the journey I wished to spend
reassuringly alone until I reached the end.

SSTSS
But if I couldn’t outpace them, camouflage
was my other option: in the mists a mirage
my outline would be, indistinct, just a blur,
and I might get away in the foggy montage
like a carrot that hides in vegetable potage.

TTUTT
So now I abandoned the pose of danseur
and from my imaginary partner I did incur
non-existent chidings and a vocal uprising
that I chose to ignore like I do a longueur
in a play in the theatre acted by a poseur.

UUVUU
I took to my heels and puffed, exercising
my legs and my heart, while galvanising
my soul with thoughts of ghosts behind,
and thus, by rushing, it is not surprising
I fell and indulged in a spot of capsizing.

VVWVV
My pursuers caught up and I was resigned
to being surrounded by apparitions unkind,
but in actual fact they were concerned,
expressing sympathy in voices combined,
meaning they had been unfairly maligned.

WWXWW
We touch a hot topic and end up burned:
the subject of ghosts is one I have learned
to regard with caution if lectured by men,
for the grim spirits we may have spurned
perhaps by death into sweet beings turned.

XXYXX
I struggled to my feet and stood again,
bowed politely every now and then
as they gently touched me on my arm,
I laughed as if tickled by a quill pen
until I stopped, but I don’t know when.

YYZYY
Softly they spoke, not wishing to alarm
an injured stranger who must stay calm,
and I listened with not a little surprise
to amazing words delivered with charm
by ghastly brothers who meant no harm.

ZZAZZ
My fall killed me, I was in a new guise,
a ghost like them, for all that lives dies,
despite the fact it sounds like a cliché,
my flesh I cast off like a cheap disguise
and now with spooks I will harmonise.

Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.

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