fiacha

Alright.

I'll finally put something in here.

It's a poem I wrote some months back. I read it at our first poetry potluck. It's probably one of my favorites.

And I never title my poems, so it's untitled.


i have this idea of a boy who used to be a prince
he used to battle ogres and dragons and evil knights his sword at his side a shield on his arm, rushing through the old tires and worn out wooden boxes that littered the outer wall of the impenetrable fortress
his trusty companion hacking at the hordes of evil beside him, shouting commands and encouragements as the hot sun beat upon them and they drove back the influence of evil from their kingdom
each swing and dodge and cut and parry was an act of prayer, that the good working through them would ultimately triumph over the evil forces of the world and they would be rewarded with gold and jewels and kisses from their princesses and soda and sandwiches at the end of the day.
jungle marshes bogged down their adventures, each muck encrusted step emphasizing the strain of their quests, leaving sneaker treads in earth and creeks and on rocks, explorers of wild lands out to capture wilder beasts, or finding hidden treasures that Indiana Jones himself would balk to discover
bravery was the currency of their realms and imagination the essence of their stories, gusto in abundance weaving simple clusters of palm trees and a few discarded boxes into jungles and fortresses and forests filled with lions and monkeys and kights and dragons
i have this idea of a boy who spent his days in pursuit of adventures, growing bigger but not older, finding his imaginings of swords and fights and ogres and elves turning to thoughts of friends and grades and girls
i have this idea where time passes and the boy discovers one day that his princess has taken a life of her own, running free of his imagination and chasing the sunlight like a bird, dipping and floating and laughter ringing in his ears echoing its way down the auditory tubes to his brain where it promptly drops into each of the four chambers of his heart where it dances around, filling him with her laughter, her light
i have this idea of a boy who one day looks to the laughter in his heart and discovers it has moved on, to other boys with other hearts and other eyes who never see her as clearly as this boy once did
ogres now stand on the sidelines, shoulder-to-shoulder with the elves and the fairies and the dragons and the knights, all watching the boy to see when he will once again turn to them and fill their days with his gusto
the boy carries on, NOW a little older though still carrying his sword at his side, exchanging wooden fantasies for cold metal in the hope that real swords could defend him against the real fears.
i have an idea of a boy who carries his sword like a shield to ward off those who might harm him, wrapping its cold metal around his heart and lashing out with cold steel and colder words while rot crumbles his foundations and he sits in the basement of his own heart listening to the roar of earthquakes cracking his fortresses walls.
things crumble with time if not supported, if not loved
his walls fall about his ears one brick at a time and he wraps himself still tighter with his cold metal shield, willingly oblivious to the damage around him
i have an idea where this boy one day looks around and sees his dreams like so much dreck and muck about him, put there BY him
he smells the scent of a passing breeze, a chance wind that carries the sound of laughter and the promise of sunlight at the end of all things
i have an idea where the boy sheds his cold metal tools, his cold traps (for tools can be traps of a sort) and sheds his clothing and digging his bare flesh into the ground and giving it shape and color and firmness, building it back into something resembling a dream
that fragile dream he cups in his hands, whispering kind words though his throat is raw from lack of speaking, blowing warm breath into his hands to warm his dream and leading it out from the ruins of before and into the light of now
i have this idea where the dream takes flight, takes root, becomes a tree or a bird or the frame of the earth itself expanding and growing and living until it becomes strong and healthy and is filled with the laughter of the boy, who is no longer a boy
i have this idea of a boy becoming a man, discovering magic again in the nooks and crannies of his life and his dreams which wait for him to come and see and embrace, filling his heart once more with his own laughter, promising once more the quest for a princess to make his queen, knowing that not all roads have yet been wandered and not all quests have yet been fulfilled.