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4 months ago
The Last Bard’s Tale (Part I) [REDUX]
[This poem is a redux version of the original, combined with the fragments I had already written for its sequel, a fair bit I wrote for it now, and radically revised versions of my Under Exalted Heels poems. I amalgamated it out of, let’s say, necessity, and though the two universes seem incongruent, I’m proud of how the poems all ended up melding beautifully. So let’s just pretend I meant to do this all along. The virtue of this poem will dictate whether I get to do what I really want to do; it’s that important, and I’m (theoretically) that confident in it.]
Prologue: Grandiose promises of yarn-spinning
“Come traveler, and let me tell you of a forgotten realm trapped in yore
Fill that chair, and into your mug this flagon’s fine mead will duly pour
As this is a tale best enjoyed in good company, food and drink galore
This hearth’s fire will warm us and ours minds shall drift, and explore
a land that many bards the world over once came to longingly adore
For, not least, inns all across this land would fill with countless score
of eager simple folk, a stoic sort so rarely inspired to cheer and roar
in appreciation of a poet’s well-spun tale, one deserving of ‘encore!’
This is such a story, though sadly one no longer held in such ardour
No, it’s been relegated to dusty tomes, whose perusal is quite a chore;
most libraries ‘cross the continent rarely hold a volume in their store
So it has now become a victim of obscurity like so many have before
How is it that rich worldly legendry could be considered but a bore?
Historians dig for paltry earthly trinkets but tend to so woefully ignore
that real treasures are found in that, since oft pored over, elder lore
Wait where was I? Oh yes! This fable which has not its existence nor
its story widely known, thanks to our mythos forsaken age of sorry war
Were its preservation to be deserted it may thusly be lost forever more!
At least if not for the few tales still told of it, ones fiercely embossed for
drama’s great effect: ‘Adventurers lo! Heed this tale you must not ignore’
Chapter I: The dystopia fosters a champion
In a distant kingdom, whose birthright was forged in the paupers’ fear,
a tyrant ruled over his people with an iron fist and a righteous sneer
His state taxes were exorbitant and his laws were so unfairly severe:
the punishments found therein were such that one wouldn’t volunteer
them upon even a most hated enemy, so brutalizing were they here
Whilst the King lived in glowing luxury, his subjects were kept austere
Peasantry in nature were they mostly; rarely could one name a peer
whose new status as a yeoman was long lived inside of this frontier
The sovereign’s inner-circle was composed of supposed cavaliers,
who, in reality, merely acted as the despot’s worldly eyes and ears
Ironic, in its way, as, amongst the people, their hollow kind veneer
fooled absolutely no-one, for all knew that their gifts were insincere
Each was retasked from spy to under-thumb, uncontested profiteer:
greedy land barons who met any tenant’s pleas of lacking with a jeer
The King also had a standing army, whom none would greet with cheer:
for even though their coat of arms bore a nobly valiant soldier’s bandolier,
these mercenaries did nothing but obey his tyrannical whims each year
See, outside of the realm’s borders there stood no equal who’d persevere
against this oppression and seek to invade, and free, this forlorn sphere
Thus, the situation was grimly hopeless or so it would outwardly appear
Yet, there was a heroic champion whose coming the peasants did revere
A child whose birth was prophesied to happen with but a single loving tear
For his mother would soon thereafter be put to death at the point of spear
and in her lifeless arms this babe would not cry, to her bosom he’d adhere
till the soldiers tore him off her to, in awe, dutifully spank his newborn rear
His destiny was claimed to be, in the verdict of every single salt-worthy seer,
that when he came of age, this oligarchy, which clearly sought to domineer
every commoner, would finally be challenged, its blight would come to clear,
and its end, long since disregarded, would, on the faint horizon, surely near
Chapter II: The child born of death
And this boy! Oh this boy! How unseeming could such a special child be?
For were you to look upon him, a savior you would hard pressed be to see
Initially a weak, sickly lad who was adopted by a humble pig-farming retiree
and raised as was the custom: god-fearing, obedient, so inclined to agree
with any man of the cloth who should offer any divine directive or decree
It was also noted in his village that no others were as mild in manner as he
Not that he was meek, or even wimpy, just so unassuming was he in deed
Though twas not his nature in everything, in one field he was genuinely gutsy:
with other boys he would roughhouse if provoked (but to no severe degree)
Thanks to the adept tutelage of his ‘father’, long since a legionnaire draftee,
the boy had learned basic sword fighting with sticks from a gnarled oak tree
His grizzled sire taught him much of battle, imparting a considerable pedigree
In fencing no other local boy could match his skill or daring, his warrior esprit!
Chapter III: That which always changes, rarely for the better
Soon though, the boy became a man, in the cruel fashion of the land,
when his lowly father was abducted after tangling with the lawmen
over the tyrant’s always increasing taxes and their pitiless demand
As the boy was out at field, swiping and thrusting at the straw-men,
practicing his new found art, his papa was taken, shackled in remand,
and quickly sentenced to hard labour his old bones just couldn’t stand
The boy returned from his joyful frolics to find the village much abuzz
with harsh gossip of his papa’s unbroken spiritedness and imprisonment
The throngs treated the oddball boy with upright suspiciousness because
it had also spread that the farmer was some sort of political dissident,
whose child, it was said, was not merely unusual but in truth illegitimate
He rushed crying from the hissing accusations of the simple, fearful folk,
and then made haste back unto the family’s cottage frightfully confused
He saw, in the distance, the quaint little homestead billowing inky smoke
and ran as fast as possible till he came across a man leaning on the oak
With tearful steadfast gaze the man fast embraced the boy and then used
a shaking hand to draw from out his pocket a small book, when he spoke
he explained to the boy exactly of what his father had really been accused
and as the fire quelled, and died in bitter embers, without the wind to stoke,
he heard of his papa’s secret nature, and of boyish naivety was disabused
Upstarting, the man took in the awful scene, and tugged tightly at his cloak
which bore the same peculiar emblem as the book’s cover, which did evoke
within the boy images of his father’s ring, and thus served to have infused
the boy with trusting hope, so that the man’s offer of a new life did provoke
awkwardly falling tears as he voiced his acquiescence with a throaty croak
Chapter IV: An Ouroboros gestation - a tale within a tale within a tale
In the man’s stately carriage they did journey into the bustling city’s heart
The boy flipped through the pages of his papa’s pocketbook and so beheld
that it housed an arcane poem of his papa’s, one written hoping it impelled
the reader towards its decryption and thus the secret knowledge it’d impart:
A king bloated with undue power did tread roughshod over all the human race
‘My liege, but what of freedom?’ asks a courtesan still of unquestioned chaste
He thought hard, then did naught but slap her face, without a moment’s haste,
and reasoned “In my kingdom, treason is that word, for it will have no place!”
He claimed to be domineering for a purpose: to free a world of slaves
who’d otherwise usurp us rational minority with a tribute paid to knaves
who claim a measly worldly pittance must be the only just remittance
to meddling Gods who sit setting morbid wagers far beyond our graves
Our measure of plodding earth seems grand but Royal pastures so expand
far beyond what the eye can easily see, and if annexed for our due territory
We would earn that bold undying fame: a noblest legacy of a hero’s acclaim
In Valhalla our vanguard’s place; they’d erect our cenotaph in godly domain
Like you, I will not be circumscribed, the wretched King himself I’d surprise
I implore you brothers, join me in shaking off this humbly subservient guise
and ascend to meet that rotten bastard in his ill-begotten castle eye-to-eye
We must become the glorious champions of all our pure and honest kind
We must show all that the imperial beast can fall and this world we’ll redefine
Our people’s militia shall assemble, and then initiate our righteous campaign
against that evilest despot whom fate’s justice has not yet seem fit to arraign
We’ll seek to claim all his purloined spoils for the kind, docile men of this land:
to finally place our grass-stained hands beyond the modest arm’s just span
Our crusade started, adopt skyward glare, seek details of their towering lair
Probe our enemy sat in airy overlook; revolve round them with roving rook
Spread word of their coming ruin in every common ear as herald of our advent
The proletariat will disperse this omen; notched and fired, our first arrow sent!
Then, in the awful twilight quiet, we shall rend the Heavens from the Earth
and in this glorious hierarchical limbo we shall long be given a private berth
The chaos of newly free men’s joyous riot will constitute a debasing hearth
to cook and crack the damned chains of aristocracy in brashly mortal fire
We shall unleash the indignantly vengeful beasts who know the king as sire
Their adamantine hides will flow with molten rage and, honour-bound, anneal
‘til they harden nigh-impenetrable, bearing a blazing crest of unbrittled zeal
In the grand aftermath of our emancipation the children of revolt shall rile
the dictator’s fragile union of underlings and minions, who we shall beguile
with promises of reinstation into power once the autocracy meets repeal
We’ll task them with sabotage: lend their filthy ears to fill with a subtle bile
Then we’ll douse our reverently enraged titans in the most potent hellfire wrath
‘tis true the immensely rugged and stalwart resolve the amassed belittled hath
To convey this intrepidly lion-hearted army’s mission and direct our holy spear:
I’ll mount the regent’s statue to bellow ‘What is owed the oppressed mutineer?’
Our defiant force of valour all assembled, given sharp and flame of a finest steel
We the hallowed flag bearers as the common man charges ornate palace gates,
are blessed architects of a grandiose plan perfected whilst beneath a royal heel
Revolution cometh; the swine sat haughtily upon a wicked throne we will displace
The meekly downtrodden have arisen, and the King before us shall finally kneel!
He read in awe, struggling to comprehend as his schooling was but brief
It was clear though, from the poem’s frequent annotations found therein,
that in many of the words some sort of special second meaning lay within
The implication were startling, inspiring in the boy an astounded disbelief
for it seemed that his father, instead of farmer, was to a spy far more akin
For the poem his father had once penned was apparently being covertly printed
as pamphlets to be distributed to rally known political dissidents in that manner
of clandestine conscription by which dormant armies, via a single central planner,
are assembled and given their instruction by a cryptic code that the poem hinted
So that a secret plot may be dispersed and all gathered under revolution’s banner
The carriage bumped over cobblestone, and yanked the boy from his imagination
As the massive city came in view, an excitement flourished within his boyish mind
For he was his father’s son and now bequeathed leadership of rebellious design
The days ahead would see the boy learn even more about the vast orchestration
So that the very first step of the plan was absolutely clear: his father’s liberation!” -
Notes: 9 / 1 year ago
Correspondence through Time (on the matter of Obsession)
Part I
First, a brief, but vitally important, letter to my past self,
so a younger me might find it and save my mental health,
it’s to be cast, once it is ‘bottled’, as far as possibly adrift
on the sea of time’s shifting tides amongst the cosmic rift!
”Oh, you must preserve your sight as if it were your mind,
and protect it by refraining from your prior profuse peeking
For though rampant curiosity is not likely to strike you blind,
what it is that your inquisitiveness will either come to find
is the honest, brutal revelations they have inked in keeping
with reasons good enough for the spurring of your weeping
or maybe you’ll discover jibes written with the malice of unkind
motives which memories and thoughts of you are now assigned
Ah, but curiosity! That such oft famed lethal cat enticement,
is so very likely to call to you so very kindly that my advisement
towards avoiding the piercing pains of an after-fact realizement
is still ostensibly to seem as an easily dismissed forethought
so even as you read what I resignedly write about our hindsight
being in your state of eager foolish stupor you’ll care for naught
You’re probably still longing after what it is you’ve so long sought” -
Notes: 21 / 1 year ago
Do you know the black?
So long contemplated, a final contingency I did dread,
a plan which was, sadly, utterly and truly my last resort
and though they’d no doubt think it crazy that I’d fled
there’d soon be but awful comprehension in my stead!
Since my flight if heralded they’d surely seek to thwart
Alone must I wordlessly escape the ever-nearing deluge
of a throughly diseased world; to a realm in lieu of ark
I will finally find sanctuary, and come to forge a refuge,
to secure mine own safety at a secret dwelling in the dark
Now, some time has passed, and I am finally content
My initial acclimatization was difficult but well assured
Spinal blades re-sharpened, I’ll continue my descent;
free-falling willingly is oft considered suicide ensured
The only constant here is that darkness has enduredHere, where your dirtied, sullied time is not allowed to go
Here, where the worldly axis is forcefully thrusted off-tilter
Here, where dimensionally the globe itself begins to slow
Here, where all is unnaturally still now, and darkness falls
Here, where black is so much blacker than any that you know
Here, where the resounding dark is so seemingly virus esque
Here, where twilight’s crass hospitality is reaching out to grow -
Notes: 16 / 1 year ago
The last Bard’s Tale (Part I)
The calm before the storm. A brief respite if you will. Regular dark angsty programming will resume shortly, believe me.
“Come traveler, let me tell you of a forgotten realm now trapped in yore
Please fill that chair, and into your mug this flagon’s mead will duly pour
As this is a tale best enjoyed in good company with food and drink galore
and by this hearth the fire will warm us and ours minds shall drift, explore
a land that so many bards the world over did once come to longingly adore
For, not least, that inns all across this land would fill with countless score
of eager simple folk, the sort whom are so rarely heard to cheer and roar
in appreciation of a poet’s well-spun tale; the kind deserving of ‘encore!’
Sadly, this is a story which has become one no longer held in such ardor
In fact, it’s now relegated to dusty tomes, whose perusal is quite a chore
Even most libraries ‘cross the continent rarely hold a volume in their store
So that is has now become a victim of obscurity like so many have before
Even in these times, how can rich worldly legendry be considered but a bore?
Those historians will dig for earthly trinkets but still tend to, woefully, ignore
that real treasures are to be found in that since oft pored over elder lore
Wait where was I? Oh yes! This place, which has not its own existence nor
its very name known widely, especially in our mythos forsaken age of war,
and, were it’s preservation to be deserted, would thus be lost forever more!
At least if not for the few stories still told of it, ones fiercely embossed for
drama’s great effect; ‘Adventurers lo! Take heed! This you should not ignore
Beware! my friends, only a lonely quickened death awaits you there senor!’ -
Notes: 2 / 1 year ago
Bangor
This is a piece I wrote some while ago, in, let’s say, happier times. It is still one of my favorite poems in my collection, and it was the first narrative poem I ever wrote. Peculiarly, the narrative was kind of precognitive of what would transpire in my own life soon after. Nonetheless, I want it in my archive, for posterity’s sake.
In lowly village, by name of Kranfore
Quick to anger, but short of stature
was a runt, once christened Bangor
Made restless quarrel did he
with those who stood higher
A yet unborn warrior would-be
An energy they could not retire
Most would just titter and crow
at imp with mischief held grim
Elders and Chieftain did tut tho;
“elfin boy with such insolent whim”
And so sought to foin placidity
in banishment to world’s brim
a realm even he held timidly
in hope his fiery heart might dim -
Notes: 23 / 1 year ago
Under Exalted heels no longer (Prologue)
A king known as roughshod
over all the human race;
‘My liege, you are a God.’
says a woman still of chaste
I do naught but slap her face
without a moment’s haste
I reason “In my kingdom,
treason is that word,
for it will have no place”
Domineering for a purpose;
to free a world of slaves
who’d otherwise usurp us
with tribute paid to knaves
who claim a measly pittance
must be the just remittance
to those beyond our graves -
Notes: 24 / 1 year ago
Under Exalted heels no longer (Part I)
Headquarters made of my palace,
a citadel of our mortal malice
First I silenced the short outcry
of those opposing plans to defy
With promises Hercules would die
I bribed Atlas to let tilt the sky
above where my castle does lie
a testament to man’s invention
A black bubble of secrecy erected
to cloak the doings of my dissension
My base of operations now protected
Campaign started, with skyward glare
Seeking details of their towering lair
Probe my enemy sat in airy overlook
Revolve round them with roving rook
All Things Literary
Find my Prose
Welcome to my humble writing blog. There's a lot to see here, if you care to see it. Enjoy your stay!
FEATURED WORK:
An Ode to an Abdicated Muse - A poem demonstrating my infatuation's huge capacity for aesthetic appreciation
A Sniper's Perch [REDUX] - A short story narrating the mechanical executions and detached ponderings and reflections of a lone Russian sniper during the brutal climax of WWII
The Last Bard’s Tale [REDUX]
An Epic Poetry series (in progress)
Part One
You'll find Alexandria when the Dawn Commeth
A short story told from the perspective of a man facing his fast-approaching death. The narrative follows the struggles of two starcrossed lovers kept apart by wicked divine intervention.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
The Poem
The Story
The Author
Wide-eyed, wild-haired boy posts poems, short stories, and various other miscellaneous creative writing.
My name is Ryan. I am a wordsmith, storyteller, fantasizer and self-destructive habitual hyphen abuser.
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