Child's Play

in #poetry7 years ago

The parched and thirsty ground drank
their sweat, their tears, their blood.
Beaten backward, the leftmost flank
allowed the enemy, rank on rank,
to pour about them like a flood.

Crackling in their midst, with a thud,
Warmage Alexos stabbed and smashed.
Wading through the hellish mud,
he made the enemy turn and scud.
His singing blade through them slashed.

To meet him, a fell champion bashed
through the chaff flowing away.
To left, to right, his hammer crashed,
while from his eyes a red light flashed;
from hands, dark powers to rend and flay.

The looming combat held sway
o’er those in safety and in peril -
breathless. The fate of the day -
hanging - who would die, who would slay?
The sun, the clouds, the wind, stood still.

Both demon and mage felt the thrill
of gamblers laying cards all-in.
Experts in war, in the art of the kill,
they fought each other on that hill,
“Alex, come down to the kitchen!”

Alex
quickly
scrambled
dinner-ward.
Tossed about,
the toys lay,
patiently,
to play.

Most of my poems have been built on something like the Old English alliterative style, but I decided with this to follow something like what Robert Frost did in The Road Not Taken and Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening.

Thanks to @geekorner for his comments and critiques.

Thanks to the Isle of Write for a place to talk about writing and improve.

Recent works:

Home for Christmas
Going (?) Mad
Endeavor

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art courtesy of @PegasusPhysics

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Let's not have dinner tonight! Your words draw me into the scene inside the Alex's head. While reading I kept thinking of some game I was recently playing, and imaging its characters battling it out. Excellent write yet again :)

Thanks! Yeah, it may have been more realistic to have him NOT run to dinner. :D Maybe I am too fixated on food myself.

As adult, I am too! but as a child, it would be 30 minutes of "COMING!!"

A very nice poem this, i like your style. We would love to welcome you in Poets United, the only community that caters only to poets! https://discord.gg/h2qSjD
Followed and upvoted!

The turn caught me completely off guard here, @whoshim, and immediately pulled me into the nostalgia fueled memories of my own adventures and triumphs that spanned the globe from the corner of my room as a tyke.

Glad too that the battle of good vs even could be suspended for something as important as the evening meal - priorities are important!

Thank you for sharing, mate, fun read.

Thanks for the comment. Sorry I didn't reply sooner.

I am glad it was surprising. I was not sure about the title. I wanted it to be meaningful without giving too much away.