Andalus' poetry

[Andalus]

NB: I felt like writing something more metrical, and so this ballad is written in pantoum format. Each stanza has 4 lines, each line 8 syllables. Lines two and four of each stanza become lines one and three of the next. Officially, it should also be in an ABBA rhyme scheme, but since this is so devilishly tricky to achieve, especially so the longer the poem gets, none but the best writers have ever bothered with this part of the definition. Preface aside, I give you:


Ballad of the Boy Who Sought the Hiding Maiden

The boy called out the maiden's name,
Through all the winding village streets,
But no reply or footstep came,
From any corner they might meet.

Through all the winding village streets,
He ran and scoured the place around,
From any corner they might meet,
Searching for sight or mildest sound.

He ran and scoured the place around,
He stood still in the market square,
Searching for sight or mildest sound,
One glimpse of braided golden hair.

He stood still in the market square,
And there reflected in his eye,
One glimpse of braided golden hair,
Hiding behind a merchant's dye.

And there reflected in his eye,
His maiden caught, the chase at end,
Hiding behind a merchant's dye;
He darted forward to his friend.

His maiden caught, the chase at end,
A wily prey for him to find,
He darted forward to his friend,
And found an empty space behind.

A wily prey for him to find,
He whirled his head around once more,
And found an empty space behind,
A yellow ribbon on the floor.

He whirled his head around once more,
Looking for his elusive game,
A yellow ribbon on the floor;
The boy knew the young owner's name

Looking for his elusive game,
A pair of hands clasped o'er his eyes.
The boy knew the young owner's name;
He had been captured by his prize.

A pair of hands clasped o'er his eyes,
He now was freed and led away.
He had been captured by his prize;
She gave him a new game to play.

He now was freed and led away,
Away from all the village streets.
She gave him a new game to play,
And onward danced their playful feet.

Away from all the village streets,
To forest's dappled shade they fled.
And onward danced their playful feet,
Beneath where swaying branches spread.

To forest's dappled shade they fled;
They ran together through the trees,
Beneath where swaying branches spread;
Where leaves swung from the green trapeze.

They ran together through the trees;
Therein they found the greatest oak,
Where leaves swung from the green trapeze,
Ivy clung like a living cloak.

Therein they found the greatest oak
The boy stretched and of branch took hold.
Ivy clung like a living cloak,
His hands hung to the meshwork folds.

The boy stretched and of branch took hold,
He clambered up with boyish vim.
His hands hung to the meshwork folds,
And leapt unto tree's wooden limb.

He clambered up with boyish vim;
The maiden followed in his style,
And leapt unto tree's wooden limb,
With volant grace and ludic smile.

The maiden followed in his style;
As one they left the bole behind.
With volant grace and ludic smile,
Onwards and up the tree they climbed.

As one they left the bole behind;
Along the forest king's thick branch.
Onwards and up the tree they climbed,
They laughed and played and did not blanch.

Along the forest king's thick branch,
The young boy's friend shinned on ahead,
They laughed and played and did not blanch,
As further up the tree she led.

The young boy's friend shinned on ahead;
She called to him a puckish tease,
As further up the tree she led;
Her hair blew in the autumn breeze.

She called to him a puckish tease,
From highest point of the great oak,
Her hair blew in the autumn breeze,
As suddenly the tree branch broke.

From highest point of the great oak,
Tease turned to cry of disbelief,
As suddenly the tree branch broke;
Fair maid fell tumbling like a leaf.

Tease turned to cry of disbelief;
The boy froze at the chilling sound.
Fair maid fell tumbling like a leaf,
A painful crack, she hit the ground.

The boy froze at the chilling sound,
Close to falling in sharp surprise.
A painful crack, she hit the ground;
She disappeared before his eyes.

Close to falling in sharp surprise,
He made the journey down alone.
She disappeared before his eyes,
Nowhere he saw her body prone.

He made the journey down alone,
And as hard as one boy might try,
Nowhere he saw her body prone,
Nor heard any weak whimpered cry.

And as hard as one boy might try,
He never found where his maid fell.
Nor heard any weak whimpered cry,
No laugh to break him from his spell.

He never found where his maid fell,
Searching onwards for all of time.
No laugh to break him from his spell,
Never another tree to climb.

Searching onwards for all of time,
He roamed until he turned insane.
Never another tree to climb,
The boy called out the maiden's name.

[Andalus]

Kármán Line

Do not strain for perfection,
When the struggle will tear you apart.
A broken will is trampled into nothing,
However far along the road it lies.

But neither should you recline,
And refuse to do your part,
Simply work hard at what you know,
And fly as high as you may rise.

Run the race as far you can,
Once the flag is waved to start,
But do not tear yourself in two,
To attain an empty prize.

Do not drift with rudder loose,
With no course plotted on your chart,
Nor let yourself become another Icaros,
Falling from the skies.

[Andalus]

Harlot's Prayer

The liquid dribbled down her pocked and mud-stained cheek,
Beneath the stare of the cassocked priest whose spit she wore.
"Harlot!" came the cry from his harsh and wizened face,
"Devil's daughter! Get away from me, foul whore!"

He spat again with venom from his pursed, fissured lips,
And crossed his chest against her wanton, wicked ways.
He left her standing as tears mingled with his spit,
Ridding himself of this wretched girl's malaise.

She trembled on the cobbled street, afraid to move again,
To return to where she crouched in alley's damp and gloom.
Where she had slept and begged all the years she could recall,
And plied the shameful trade the priest did so impugn.

How many years she'd lived there, she didn't even know,
Not even had she known how to count the long years' months.
And counting would a curse have been, to number every knave,
Who used her cruelly to make him feel puissant.

All who passed the street knew just how she made her way,
The baker always frowned as she bought a piece of bread.
The filthy godless girl that heaven punished for her sin,
The rancid vagrant bitch, the whore without a bed.

And every night, when finally the devils let her be,
And perchance might leave her with a sordid copper coin,
She wept herself to sleep and hoped to wake up from her hell,
Wishing the bruising pain would leave her ravaged loins.

The priest, she'd prayed, would rise above the vicious rats,
Who plagued her life and yet to whom she loathly owed her keep.
A glimmer, perhaps, of hope to end her stinking misery,
To offer grace, to heal the scars, and sores that seeped.

But the only light that shone reflected from the golden cross,
That hung as a gaudy pendant from this priest's neck.
No beam of kindness streamed out from the corner of his eye,
Nor was generosity a jewel that him bedecked.

He looked down with disgust as she crept out and approached,
The filthy harlot who dared to address a holy priest.
She grovelled before him praying for a benign gift of alms,
But he saw nothing in her but a mangy, cowering beast.

He raised his hand as if to strike, then held it back from her,
To keep his lavendered fingers from the harlot's smut.
He spat at her, as if to flick holy water on her face,
To all her desperate pleadings, his contemptuous rebut.

She felt no disgrace, as all such shame had long since fled away,
And took her punishment as the priest cursed her with his jeers.
His spew of sickened hate complete, he spurnfully swept on,
Leaving cries of "Harlot!" ringing fiercely in her ears.

And there she stood, alone again, abandoned to her fate,
As gathered crowds hied quick away with bashful haste.
And there she stood, cast back from this encounter,
To her constant torture and her business so debased.

From there, who knows what became of a poor harlot's prayer,
And if an answer ever came to lift her from her pit.
If she lived another day, a week, a month, even a year,
Or if she drowned in righteous pools of churchman's spit.

She'd been to mass just once in all her awful life,
And listened to the sermon of the priest who spoke.
He'd told of a good Samaritan's charity and care,
As she stood in tattered rags behind the gentle folk.

In awe she'd paid attention to the leather Bible's words,
Rapt with amazement at the stranger's worthy deeds.
But a verger saw the harlot there with mud upon her feet.
And cast her from the church with the ungodly weeds.

She often wished that she'd been born in ancient Samaria,
For she'd heard tell that at least one good man lived there.
And to her that kindly stranger seemed to be one good man more,
Than she'd ever heard to chant the good Lord's Prayer.

[Andalus]

And now for something completely different.

Moonbeast

Each month, I go into my garden and kneel.
Once each month, as the yellow moon is revealed,
I kneel. I kneel and I wait for the worst.
I feel it come to me slowly, becoming the curse.
I feel the fur bristle from my back first,
I feel the claws from my fingers burst,
I feel the snout growing from my face.
I feel the whiskers on my cheeks,
The tail springing from my spine's base.
Agony, twisting my physique.
Twisting. Shrinking.

And I feel the hunger.
Desperate, unrelenting lust.
This insatiable desire, for cheese.
I've no control, I just know I must
Do as my twitching nose decrees.

I raise myself on my wee hind legs,
And I squeak mournfully at the cheddar moon.
I am the were-mouse, doomed for all eternity.
Doomed to live my nights cursed in obscurity.
I'm a goddamned mouse. I'm a freaking cartoon.

[comrade_general]

That certainly was different, but interesting, made me laugh about desiring cheese because I'm sitting in a cheese factory right now.  8)

[Jubal]

Nom, cheese. 

[Andalus]

Trophy

We held our prize aloft,
As it shone against the sun.
We bore it all around the field,
Where we had proudly won.

A hard fight had we upraised,
To our opponents' shame.
We shattered their defences,
And beat them at their game.

Our feet charged across the grass,
And the victory we stole.
We hammered back every attack,
And pressed on to our goal.

Red ribbons hanging down,
As we held it high to sing
The proof here of our triumph.
Head of the enemy king.

[Andalus]

The Teeming Dark

I fear the dark; who does not, as they ought?
Such fear is a lesson which need not be taught.
We come from a world of darkness when hatched,
And spend our lives seeking to never go back.

The darkness is where shadowed mysteries roam,
No colour reflects from the ink of the gloam,
And to our unskilled eyes, nothing is known.

We become children in the absence of light,
As the sun abandons us to our lonely fright,
Alone with ourselves in the empty night.

We become children, not because we scream,
For our mothers to come to our aid,
Nor because our clothes become soiled;
We are not so pitifully afraid.

For we are grown old, and have flown the nest.
We can face the fear with calm,
Holding the terror close to our chest
Where the heart beats with alarm.

Yet we are children, who know nothing.
Like a newborn, our eyes are blind.
We cannot see or know what lies beyond,
But in the wild imagery of our minds.

And thus we envision all the worst that might creep,
What skulks at the summit of the dark night's peak,
Waiting to drop from delusion's cliff face steep.

We pray like children, who know no god.
We pray to no father, no altar before us.
A child prays, though he knows not whom to.
He releases his fears and he pleads with his chorus.

We kneel and we pray, with hands clasped tight,
Pray that nothing waits beyond the spread of the light.
That the darkness is empty, with nothing to fear,
That nothing ghastly is anywhere near.

But my prayers are different to these banishing spells,
For what will fill the black void if they succeed?
I pray for the night to be thick with all night's risks,
All the terrors we know the darkness bleeds.

Let the dark be filled with horrors, creatures that crawl.
Silent hunters and beasts, snares and pitfalls.
I know that I face these in the daylight hours,
I can see them not then, and I do not then cower.

I fear them not now in the shroud of dark,
Indeed, I am glad to be sure they are there,
For it is when we face the empty unknown,
That we should know to truly beware.

[Andalus]

The Artist

The artist is no Gaia standing in our midst.
The artist does not create.
The artist captures what already exists,
And puts it on display.
He is a hunter, a seeker,
A menagerie-keeper.

The artist interprets for his fellow
Who has no ears to hear or no eyes to see.
He is a translator of foreign tongues
For those who speak less fluently.
A scribe to take down the volumes
That the world dictates to him.
He finds a way to tell a deaf man
The notes a mistle thrush may sing.

The artist has no gift to bring,
For all he offers, he was given.
One does not make a living through art.
Art is made through living.

[Andalus]

Lies and Legends

If you have a moment of your time I could beg,
Would you say a legend is the end of a leg?
And is the end of a leg not a foot?
A story's a lie, and they say those are fleet,
Can travel half the world on their nimble feet,
Before the truth has pulled on one boot.

[Andalus]

Mortal Sin

Do you hear? Alarum bells are ringing,
Harsh through the air of Friday's fading light.
Clear, cast-iron testimonies singing,
A villain to be brought to heel this night.

Send out the guards! Call all the watch to arms!
A mortal sin now hangs above this town.
Quick, 'fore the devil follows with more harm,
Bring the culprit to justice by the hounds!

A sinner once, a sinner twice, a sinner e'er to be,
Savaged by flame-eyed hounds of hell for all eternity.

Do you smell that unholy rising stench?
The torrid scent of burning flesh abides.
The ling'ring witness to this vile offense,
And now the way to sinner's lair will guide.

Guards! Seek the oven that yielded this sin,
Its maker who has sacred law so spurned.
Scatter the ashes of the flame within,
Let this defiant heretic now burn.

A sinner once, a sinner twice, a sinner e'er to be,
Within the pits of hell to burn for all eternity.

Do you see? Bones decorate the platter,
Like pagan cleromancy here at work.
Would that witchcraft were the crucial matter,
This crime might not cause so much disconcert.

But look here and see these are no fishbones,
Nor are these scraps of flesh from herring wrought.
No, here is sin for which none can atone,
Bold defiance of all that has been taught.

A sinner once, a sinner twice, a sinner e'er to be,
Bones to be picked apart in hell for all eternity.

Do you know the pain that will await you,
When your stubborn soul is to hell condemned?
Can you conceive the torment that is due,
For heresy so froward and so fremd?

To sup meat on Friday is forbidden,
Your disobedience a mortal sin.
From holy eyes sin cannot be hidden,
Enough berating! Let torture begin!

A sinner once, a sinner twice, a sinner e'er to be,
Savaged by the hellhounds, bones to be picked apart and chewed,
Skin seared from the body, and living flesh as meat then hewed,
And cast into the fire to burn for all eternity.

[Andalus]

Ziqqurats

Before you can build you must first destroy,
But not all destruction may be rebuilt.
Real building blocks are no child's toy,
And to topple them beckons adult guilt.
As a boy I built mighty ziqqurats -
Mighty as a boy's mind can understand.
But wooden blocks little higher than flat,
To my eyes like monoliths in the sand.
As if raised up from the desert itself,
By architect gods to adorn their earth.
Arazu, looking down from mountain's shelf,
Poured blessings upon the completed work.
Now I stand tall over old bricks cast down.
Ziqqurats fallen where they once stood proud.

[Andalus]

Inheritance

A throne needs more than an orphaned prince to seat a worthy king,
More than a widow's tears to teach him how to rule.
It takes more than a pretty beak to train a bird to sing,
And more than coloured glass to make a jewel.

[Andalus]

Climbing the Sky

Sunrays pierce the sky, painting it blue,
And dive into jewelled ocean below.
They shimmer and swim from middle to rim,
Reflect in the eyes of clipper's crew,
Dance and sparkle with the waters' flow.

The light lingers at the ocean's swell,
At the surface, away from the deep,
As if to be so afraid, or as though
To miss the heavens from which they fell,
And ever close to those great heights keep.

But the waters know a higher place,
Where they were once born and fled away,
Far off to the north, where rivers rush forth,
To join the ocean and end their race,
Where spinning dolphins leap and make play.

Aye, for each droplet in this expanse,
Has travelled just as far as the light.
Come down from a bay, where dolphins make play,
The water sprays as they twirl and dance,
Sunrays glisten with joy at the sight.

Before that, they flowed from Ganges' yawn,
A green delta sprawling over the land.
And further upstream, fresh water runs clean,
By the Koshi river's current borne
From a world where the mountains command.

An eagle flies over the water,
A black shadow that moves with the course.
His wings beat the air, climbing heaven's stair,
The blue line below him grows shorter,
As his flight leads him nearer the source.

Into snowy Himalayan realm,
The eagle pilots on golden wings,
Over mountain range, a dominion strange,
The white crest of Mother Gaia's helm,
Proud pinnacles standing tall like kings.

But though he sweeps beside the rock face,
To his nest near the roof of the earth,
The great peaks tower beyond his power,
Among soaring draughts he cannot chase,
High ledges where he cannot make berth.

And there one rises, greatest of all,
More than fifty cathedrals in height.
The mountain of kings, in silent voice sings;
Everest holds mankind in her thrall,
In coronation gown of pure white.

Chomolungma, the holy mother,
The rocky head in the great blue sky.
Sagarmatha's face, in white snow encased,
Here rising above any other,
Surveys the land with arrogant eye.

The rocks here spoke first, before man's tongue,
And know their own name in their own speech.
How does man have claim to give them their name?
Before the walk of man had begun,
The mountains had grown out of his reach.

Below, the eagle soars round her skirt,
And spies small figures climbing the sky,
A ladder of stone, scaling heaven's throne,
Foolish apes choosing with death to flirt,
Though they hardly know reason or why.

A simple lust that is man's disease,
To stand on all the places most high,
However inane, how harsh the terrain,
Just as monkeys hunger for the trees,
And the sunlight still clings to the sky.

But look you above where clouds parade,
And above where the mountaintops soar,
Where the sky spans on to stars and beyond,
Looks back down to the mountains, displayed,
And thinks them to be mighty no more.

There is the truth - even Everest grand
Is but a tiny leap off the ground,
Compared to how high is the endless sky,
Or how low is the sea floor's sand,
And the throne where Poseidon was crowned.

But you cannot breathe in oceans deep;
A fool you would be to even try.
You cannot stride proud on a silver cloud;
The sky may far dwarf the mountains steep,
But you cannot stand on the sky.

[Andalus]

Wild Flower

Is not nature a sure and brazen whore,
As she welcomes the striped gentlemen into her bower?
To take heady delight in her petals so bright,
And the sweet nectar deep in her flower.

Is the bee not a varlet who abuses the harlot,
And carries the scent of many flowers on his legs?
He turns the delicate bloom into a seed's cocoon,
And leaves the mother to raise the child unwed.

Oh, you'd be a fool, to not see nature is as cruel,
As the humans who think her manner so pure.
And you'd be far misled, to think the tulips red,
Aught more innocent than the two lips of a whore.