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Awake! Arise, O silent sleeping sword.
Shake off your crusty scabbard shield.
Break out the trusty tempered steel
let now the truth be seen, revealed.
Diseased, the damsel lies distressed,
her dreamy spires and hallowed halls
once held the finest English swords,
now sullied, slain upon your floors.
Awake, arise! Where now the snicker-snack
of greater minds, articulately matched?
Beware the sage that yields the plastic spoon
His inkling days in bastard text entombed.
Treads now the troglodyte, his step
is softly set, the cradle now his nest.
Upon each mortal thread he spreads
his cancer growth with every breath.
Where once you cut and cleaved apart,
a dull edged piercing of my heart, now
bleeding words of weight, leading
the lament of the silent sleeping swords.
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Cidermaid, this was really cool. I liked where now the snicker-snack of greater minds It gave it such a through the looking glass feel. Your internal rhyme and alliteration really made this fun to read. I'll give the critique some more thought and come back if I have something.
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson
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i love the way this sounds. there's some cool rhythms in there. i like how the last stanza brought it all together but it seems like there could have been a smoother transition from the troglodyte stanza. the language you used and the rhyme scheme really suit the content. this was a cool read thanx!
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Forgive me if I read this wrong, but I just love how sarcastic it all sounds. Love the sort of old world rhyming coming together with what I take to be a brand of casual modern cynicism. The imagery of knights and damsels is a perfect sardonic compliment to the underlying meaning of the words. Well written and I enjoyed it.
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Wow, I really liked this poem! I love this part:
"Diseased, the damsel lies distressed,
her dreamy spires and hallowed halls"
I the medieval theme is awesome!!
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Thanks everyone for the kind comments.
I did intend for there to be a thinly veiled sarcastic edge.
Our (UK) education institutions have stood for eons (since medievial times) to supposedly represent the best of the best of intellect.
A famous Uk talk show host (Parkinson) said it all for me, when he announced his decision to retire. He said, (The gist of...not exact quote) that he felt that he had run out of interesting people to interview. Nobody had anything to say anymore, there was no depth to them.
I Picked on Oxford because so many that I greatly admire came through these doors. C.S Lewis, Tolkien, Lewis carol, John & Charles Wesley & Whitefield, John Betjeman. To name but a few. There is a huge list of interesting people who lived extraordinary lives. I would struggle to name one person who has passed through from the last 20yrs.
Where now the snicker-snack?.....Oh yeh that's right I forgot, the thought police confiscated it because it was deemed too dangerous and issued a plastic spoon instead.
So as someone who did not even go to higher school /college, nevermind univeristy, I'm deeply dissapointed in the current best of the best. However, i don't think it is because they are less inteligent, It is more that they've not been taught how to think for themselves...thier intelligence has been raped and now lies sillied and soiled..
