Tweedledum and Tweedledee are characters from Lewis Carroll’s Alice books. Note that Damascus is not a seaport, which only adds to the lunacy.
Old poem, recently finished.
What got the writing of this poem going was the subtle alliterative wordplay in the first few lines.
“Not the mad, nor the damned,
“Nor the damned mad
“Will carry M’dam to Damascus.
“As for us,” said we,
“For a minimal fee,
“We’ll ferry you there if you ask us.”
She looked on with doubt
As our ears flapped about
And our smiles slowly broadened to grins
“I do need the ride,”
She saw fit to confide,
“But I hear there is danger in twins.”
“Do not fear, do not fret.
“You won’t even get wet.
“As our boat is surprisingly sound.
“It was made from a pail
“With swiss cheese for a sail.
“Only half of our crewmen have drowned.”
We set off at noon
By the light of the moon
Hoping to get there by dawn
We were in a hurry
Which caused her some worry
But we lessened her stress with a yawn
Halfway to our goal
We encountered a hole
On the top of the head of a whale
It was pulling us in
Be we saved with a spin
And continued our path without fail
The ocean was rough
Which made sailing quite tough
Though the boat mostly progressed as planned
It took us a while
But we maintained a smile
And eventually made it to land
She paid us our fare
As she flipped back her hair
And we carried her luggage ashore
We waved her goodbye
With a wink in our eye
And moved on to collect even more