a mercenary's tale
It has been another busy week, and I have to dig up some old stuff again. I have posted this piece before, very early on in this blog. I must have read too many fantasy stories when I wrote this.
I wrote this poem about a soldier telling his love about his adventures. It is an imaginary tale but it could have happened in any civilization, any war.
I will try to get back to my normal rants soon. :)
you sat by the steppe's fire
absently stirring the flaming embers
as sparks crackled
in the cold wintry night
you sat listening , intently
to my tales of slaughter
i and my horse-sword
how i rode with the devil's forces
i knew you did not blame me
why i sold my sword for money
the Central Plains i rode
are bleak and barren
vultures & wild hounds picked on
diseased bones
a hundred years of war
the reasons long murky
as the ashes that swirled
between the fiefdoms
kings and dukes and serfs
fell like scythed hay
ragged troops plundered
flaming arrows torched
ravaged villages
the dead left as they fell
amid ruined harvests..
you sat listening intently
the light of the fire bouncing off
your liquid eyes
the glow on your face
more beautiful than dawn's light.
June 1991
revised 08.03.2008
*********
images and poem © cheong lee san ( dsnake1 )
I wrote this poem about a soldier telling his love about his adventures. It is an imaginary tale but it could have happened in any civilization, any war.
I will try to get back to my normal rants soon. :)
you sat by the steppe's fire
absently stirring the flaming embers
as sparks crackled
in the cold wintry night
you sat listening , intently
to my tales of slaughter
i and my horse-sword
how i rode with the devil's forces
i knew you did not blame me
why i sold my sword for money
the Central Plains i rode
are bleak and barren
vultures & wild hounds picked on
diseased bones
a hundred years of war
the reasons long murky
as the ashes that swirled
between the fiefdoms
kings and dukes and serfs
fell like scythed hay
ragged troops plundered
flaming arrows torched
ravaged villages
the dead left as they fell
amid ruined harvests..
you sat listening intently
the light of the fire bouncing off
your liquid eyes
the glow on your face
more beautiful than dawn's light.
June 1991
revised 08.03.2008
*********
images and poem © cheong lee san ( dsnake1 )
posted by dsnake1 at 12:38 AM
11 Comments:
great combination of the brutal and the romantic
thank you
floots,
thank you. :)
a bleak and desolate tale with a flicker of romance...
love it
i was looking for contrasts here. :)
thanks, polona.
I could imagine the gradual shift in the soldier's tone, the softening in his eyes, as the look of wonder in his companion's face takes him back to the present, to the deepening bond of 'their' moment. ;)
Annihilation then dawn, rebirth. The contrasts are physically felt--the cold, the heat. Above all, the power of love to bear through the listening, to hear the story of trauma.
soulless,
i like your interpretation of this story. :)
the narrator is weary of all these wars but it is what he is doing that's keeping him, and his companion alive.
deborah,
thanks for your comments.:)
the power of good, and love, will always triumph. i wanted to show in this piece , as Soulless has said, a gradual shift in the soldier's tone. the moments with his loved one are what he lives for.
I like the various moods in here. His intonation. Very vivid.
thank you, gautami. :)
stark w/ a glimmer of romance
I like your drawing!
Artistically,
Gel { * * }
:)
thanks, GEL!
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