Do You Write Poetry?

[daisybee]

you are quite right,
that was a sight,
gave me a fright,
I'll say goodnight.



Only kidding.

 

[RJLeahy]

I have to first answer that no, I do not generally write poetry, but there was a place in this new novel that required it and so I was forced to come up with something. I've posted it below with a bit of dialogue to set it up. Please feel free to comment or critque:

“May we hear it?” Captain Ho asked.

"The tale is in the form of a poem in the ancient tigra tongue, difficult to convert into Earth standard,” Samson said. He gestured to Erato. “But Erato has been working on a translation. Would you do us the honor Erato?”

She looked up, startled. “But... the translation is still in the rough stages. It's in a style of verse not easily rendered in another language. I'm not very good with poetry, and so the meter is pretty basic. Also, there's the problem of inflection...”

“Oh quit telling us how bad it is before we even get to hear it,” Mel said.

“Yes, I would love to hear it as well,” purred Thal. She lay stretched on the floor near Calli, her head resting on Bernd's foot.

Erato looked expectantly at J.C.

“Sure, go ahead,” he said.

Bowing her head, she began to recite in a low voice:


“Mark the twilight knocking
soft upon the door
into the night he steals us
for the sins of Rorthra Orr

Of light we were created
In light did we grow wise
when given us the secrets
long hidden from our eyes

Of words that could be spoken
and signs that could be drawn
in this we were ascended
from the darkness to the dawn

Long as children playing
were we happy there before
came the curse of Ka-lon
and the sins of Rorthra Orr

Many were the lanterns
and many were the halls
and many were the people
behind its gleaming walls

And never has there been
And never will there come
a place of peace and beauty
like the magical Ka-lon

The birds there sang like minstrels
and the trees bore leaves of gold
the people knew not sickness
and lived long 'ere they grew old

Blessed we were by Maag above
in those dawning days of yore
before the fall of Ka-lon
and the sins of Rorthra Orr

But the king atop the mountain
his pride and greed abound
and lusted in his darkest heart
all Ka’rran for his crown

Then war he loosed upon the land
that never had been seen
and red became the valleys there
that ever had been green

By sword he gathered all the world
and tied them to his yoke
Then Maag did rage against the king
and in anger, Croe awoke

The last of all the giants he
whose voice was thunder's roar
to take from us the spoken word
for the sins of Rorthra Orr

The king upon his gilded throne
too late his folly sees
and sends his sons throughout the lands
to keep the secret free

Then Croe upon fair Ka-lon falls
its walls before him rend
and all the beauty that was there
shall never be again

yet still does Croe haunt all the land
and never will he cease
until he take the inner light
that lifts us from the beasts

And so it is he comes at last
to fulfill the curse of yore
and draws the darkness over us
for the sins of Rorthra Orr”


The room had grown quiet as Erato ended her poem, and she looked uncomfortably at the pensive faces around her.

“That was written by an unknown poet in the last days of the tigra civilization,” she explained. “They blamed the catastrophe of our race on the ancient legend of Rothra Orr, the mythical king who first made war against his own kind and in so doing, incurred the wrath of Maag, the tigra God. In punishment, he sent the giant Croe to take back the gift of knowledge which he had given them, reducing them to animals. I'm sorry. It is really very lovely in the tigra tongue. I didn't do a very good job.”

“My dear, it was beautiful,” Captain Matahbu said. Like the others, he had been deeply moved by the poem. “Ka’rran, was that the tigra name for their world?”

“Yes, and Ka-lon their first city. They called themselves ‘the Ka’-- the people-- and believed Ka’rran was once the home of Maag, and that he had given it up for them. To the ancient race then, the entire planet was holy ground, yet still they killed and slaughtered each other upon it.”

“How very sad, and how frightening it must have been for them, to see their people reduced to savagery and know there was nothing they could do to stop it,” Captain Ho remarked.

None of the tigras spoke, lost as they were in their own thoughts. This was the first any of them had heard the verse, and the voice of one of their own from so long ago affected them profoundly.

“You worry about your people, do you not little one? That is why you named your ship thus,” Ghannon asked gently. “You worry perhaps, that you are committing the same sin: bringing war to the tigras?”

Erato lowered her gaze. "Yes."

 

[Tansy]

I don't normally write poetry, with good reason, but this was something that came to me one day - no rhyming though and as yet untitled and likely to stay that way

The breeze lightly skims the nape of my neck
Its touch blowing away the remnants of your breath
that lingered there
now resigned to just a memory.
I shiver as I did then,
but this time without passion,
without longing, without desire.
Just an involuntary reaction to the cold
when once it was a shiver of anticipation.
I whisper to the wind to bring you home once more
to breathe away its hollow touch and fill the void within