Tuesday, January 03, 2006
It Wants To Rain
The following was written earlier today for a small-time poetry contest in which we were instructed to produce a piece somehow related to weather. There is a lot of Chesterton influence in this one, I feel, and it shows in the rhythm and some of the content (St. Barbara, for example). It strikes me as being incomplete, and I will possibly come back to it later.
For now, however, here we are:
Dust hangs haughty in the red skull sky,
And growls as the trembling clouds skirt by,
And groans and falls as the west winds cry
In the valley of dying things.
He falls on dry, crack'd riverbeds and chokes the infant springs:
A lance is in this Dragon's breast, and granite on his wings.
Now hear him in his death throes as St. George's vengeance rings;
St. Barbara stands upon the lines and sweet destruction sings -
And her voice holds all the glory of the wrath of ancient Kings,
A tremor of the thunder that the rising summer brings.
A thousand men are striving forth as each his volley flings;
They cheer as each round leaves them; they use their arms as slings.
Seeds fly fleetly in the grim great gloom,
And the winds rise eastward and the rains resume.
The dust lies scattered, and the Rose will bloom,
In the valley where life still clings.
It feels as though it wants another two stanzas in the same style as the intermediaries, but with a different rhyme conceit, of course. One can only carry -ings so far.
Three down; three hundred and sixty-two to go. :) ¶ 8:08 PM
For now, however, here we are:
Dust hangs haughty in the red skull sky,
And growls as the trembling clouds skirt by,
And groans and falls as the west winds cry
In the valley of dying things.
He falls on dry, crack'd riverbeds and chokes the infant springs:
A lance is in this Dragon's breast, and granite on his wings.
Now hear him in his death throes as St. George's vengeance rings;
St. Barbara stands upon the lines and sweet destruction sings -
And her voice holds all the glory of the wrath of ancient Kings,
A tremor of the thunder that the rising summer brings.
A thousand men are striving forth as each his volley flings;
They cheer as each round leaves them; they use their arms as slings.
Seeds fly fleetly in the grim great gloom,
And the winds rise eastward and the rains resume.
The dust lies scattered, and the Rose will bloom,
In the valley where life still clings.
It feels as though it wants another two stanzas in the same style as the intermediaries, but with a different rhyme conceit, of course. One can only carry -ings so far.
Three down; three hundred and sixty-two to go. :) ¶ 8:08 PM
