Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Word and Question 4

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Welcome to Word and Question, and to Crosses and Cradles, if this is your first time here. Please, look around, I haven't written as much as I'd like, especially lately, but perhaps you'll run across something you like. For more information see one of my previous W&Q entries, or go to Shredded Cheddar. If you're playing, post a link or a poem in the comments. If you aren't, please go read the poems that others have written as well. They're always fun.

As usual, I'll be awarding phantom points if you can guess the question (the word would be nearly impossible with this one). I'll reveal it in the comments later. I think it's more fun that way. Here goes:

The Litany of Apathy
Upon the fields of war it stands
Walks beside a lover, hand in hand.
It kneels on cold, cathedral floors
And dances on the open moor.
Beside a stream, it sleeps
In peace lies down, in sorrow, weeps
But the lonely ones, the tired
Sit upon a stone. The souls no longer fired
With intensity or love of beauty
In despair, or apathy await
The fealty they've sworn to fate
They find no joy, no sense of duty
Nothing but the patter of the rain upon the rock
Soaked and broken, no heroes, they
Solitary souls they sit, and say
The litany of apathy, "No good has come to me
No good of me shall come, but waiting
I shall stay, upon the rock, beneath the rain
And let the souls more brave than mine
Carry on their show, for they but feign
To smile on those stone cold floors
And dance upon the barren moors
And hand in hand they're all cut down
In fire they burn, in blood they drown
And whence their joy, their hope?"
So, bent and alone, without a care
No gentle touch this soul can stir
For he alone may foreswear
A foolish oath, and stand a man
To be, and hold, and dance, and kneel
The truth to seek, the sun to feel
And love to know at last, and understand

9 comments:

  1. dear Mr Balfour (and everyone else!) --

    Here's mine:

    http://dylanissimus.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/to-be-alive/

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  2. OK, mine's up.

    http://salomeellen.blogspot.com/2010/09/word-and-question-4-aka-poetry-game.html

    As usual I'm intimidated by this one. It makes me feel like what I should really write is nursery rhymes. Hey, maybe I'll try that next month...

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  3. Here we go! Link. Terribly light-hearted this time.

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  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. Goodness me! but I feel terribly slow, seeing that yours has been up a week already --- but I can see *my* word again, quite plainly. Salome, that's a delightfully fun and incisive verse! As I haven't seen my question, yet... oh yes, Enbrethiliel hasn't sung out, yet. Well, perhaps I'm not such a slug, after all.

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  6. I especially liked these lines:

    "Nothing but the patter of the rain upon the rock
    Soaked and broken, no heroes,"

    Mine is up: http://spikeisbest.blogspot.com/2010/09/word-question.html

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  7. +JMJ+

    The slug is finally clocking in!

    http://shreddedcheddar.blogspot.com/2010/09/jmj-word-question-poem-and-deadline.html

    Oh, Dauvit, I love your poem! It's so gentle and haunting. The apathetic soul is a real character.

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  8. They were not feathers, I knew
    Though so lightly did they fall upon my face;
    They drifted over me, growing in thickness
    And quickly gathering pace.
    They were not fair, nor pure, nor soft--

    They were not petals, of blossoms so fresh
    Though in such profusion did they rush to descend;
    They poured over me; so, covering my frame
    And filled the air with their smell.
    The weight of their substance pervaded my senses--

    I heard the words so hushed, though they were uttered
    In such low, quiet tones, far above my head;
    The murmurs spoken were indistinct and muffled
    But still, I discerned their import.
    And through my half-closed lids I stared--

    The graceful pencil that shaped her features
    Traced the lines that I once called mine;
    And I trembled, gazing at those attributes
    Marking that countenance hanging over me.
    I knew, I knew those well--

    For she that stood looking down upon my form
    She and I were bound by ties fierce and strong;
    Ours was, is, a relation immutable as friendship.
    Had we been sisters, both our fates
    Could have not been more intertwined.

    For my life she took from me--I,
    Tricked, led astray, and allowed to fall;
    She caused my head to split wide and open
    As I dashed against the rocks;
    And now she wears my face.

    While I, in this dirt: broken, consigned
    Bereft, forsaken, transfixed, all this time remaining;
    Earnestly have I sworn sweet vengeance
    In every moment I have here lain!
    But how--

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  9. oh dear! Does it seem the Octobren theme is pervading some poetry as well? I think I can discern a reaction to the question I sent out... but so macabre that it surprises!

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