Notices: Argument. Plot outline. What's in a name?

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Poetry anyone?

This is a poem I wrote almost two years ago. I'd been reading Robert Browning and was inspired to write an epic poem. It was supposed to tell a story but I quickly burned out never finished it. I still sort-of like it though.

Chimera

1.
See now the scar in rock
The ragged tear in cliff, my path
Fingers fumble, they clutch, they grasp
Arm’s sinews tick like the work of a clock
Air sucked like a child and breast so locked
And watch the inches drag away and pass

2.
Stubbled clouds stack the sky in slate
Throwing snow petals to pattern the soil
Now caught by wind and turned in a cauldron boil
And there the mountain spear and sky mate
“Come and see the cold light generates.”
Says your voice or only the distant thunder roll

3.
Chimera, did your hand?
Your forge form the precipice?
Or knife cut the crevice?
Or mill grind the rocks to sand?
Did the fingers that drew mountain from land
pull tight the wires of my wrist?

4.
Soul, no longer muse, for I have sworn
To cast him from the cliffs and see his fire fade
He who dug the pit will also low be laid
Hero, the earth has made me so and I will not scorn
the path that paws of beasts have yet only worn
“Come and see the life death made.”

5.
Guinevere, her kisses calmed, feet no longer tread
Her voice, a bell of mercy, in these silent hills
Her fingers smoothing frost from a pane so chilled
Dashing like a deer on our path, she led
Sudden as a laugh, sharing in my bed
With her waters and whispers, dry riverbeds filled

6.
Remembering the day we wed in the storm
Her hands, sharp as knives on my breast
In silk, thin and pale as frost, she dressed
In one kiss, destinies tangled like thorns
With words of ragged fire to her I swore
And as one we cleaved to the quest

7.
A lady, fair as a child
A girl, dark as doom
Her words choice as silk on the loom
Could one so tender be so wild?
Could one so hard be so mild?
Yet she that burned life was quenched by tomb.

8.
Guinevere, your crown once fine gold
now a band of stones, a dress of clotted earth
Princess, royal maid, now dust is your worth
Her face, her skin too pale to line old
Her fire blazed fast and at a spear bled quick and cold
She, once so blessed, in the end Chimera cursed.

9.
Chimera, did your sword paralyze?
That day of sudden battles and attacks
When strength waned and death waxed
Did you turn deaf at her cries?
At your command did she die?
Did your hand plunge the axe?

10.
Here now, I reach a place flat as the cliff sheer
This new land pulls me from dreams of her
In my path, a stream moves with waters clear and pure
The drops and slosh tap like soft chimes on my ear
When last did I see a drink so sweet and clear?
This is surely a trap, my thirst to lure

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Aaaand... I got bored. Sort of a cliffhanger poetry wise though.

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