IB exams are not quite over, but here are two poems/drafts I wrote a while ago which I never posted.
‘a gutter dream’ was after I watched a few episodes of Daredevil season one and since I wanted to give a shot at writing something based off of a character from a show or a book, I decided on writing it off of that show (no copyright infringement intended of course.) It’s not meant to be any serious character interpretation or analysis or anything, just something I wanted to try.
‘young god’ is from the point of view of one of my original characters.
a gutter dream
there is dirt under your fingernails, grimy burdens you cannot let go;
in a fight for right you lost yourself just a few steps out of home.
but always, a conviction for justice born deep inside the bones.
blood caught between skin,
where the past crawls through the cracks –
lurid shadows and a gunshot in the night;
and how quickly did it go out, that light.
only to be born again inside.
the past, it’s a street, littered with shattered bottles
and broken fists,
the noise and chemicals, seeping in,
spilled wasteland through your veins,
every follicle and fibre fuelling an ever growing fire,
set the chemicals on fire.
young boy,
on fire.
the dark and dirty can’t break such conviction,
though they try, whispers and threats,
to spin you in their spider web.
through it all a quiet resolve,
a constant faith,
steel hardened, sharpened,
losing sight of right and wrong,
the lone man,
a witness, to a city surreal.
caught in chaos,
a rearing cacophony of noise and fight,
tainted with circumstance,
you are an everlasting storm,
always on the precipice,
unsure of where you’ll be.
but i have never seen a heart so set,
waiting for the day
that he will hear the city in peace at last,
and the chaos will fade away.
forgotten god
I was born with a better sneer,
A brighter eye.
I was my father’s soldier of pride,
A mouthful of iron tinged blood,
And not a single fear.
Not flinching from a lion’s roar,
Wrangling a hare straight from the jaws
of the beast for a dare.
They say the sun shone brighter on the day
I fought my way into the world the warrior’s way,
The planets aligned,
Underneath the arch of the blood strewn sky,
Rose above my brothers and all my cousins,
Sharp and strong I rose up high.
A line of suitors and a foul mouthed heart,
Preened and regal, I drank my wine
and I cast them aside,
Twisting tangled silver branches into my hide,
There will be no equal by my side.
Scornful, scoured the country,
Threw my spears and did my archery,
Enemies and rebels felled left and right,
Until my name was tainted with awe
and bloodied with fright.
I dragged a stag straight from its home,
Tore out its antlers made them my throne,
Beheaded the traitors and executed the foes.
Made my servants blare their trumpets,
Made them carve my crest into flesh and bone,
Won it all, land and heads and bodies and gold,
Tried to rule and reign,
Iron and steel to my fortress home.
Heart of poison, set fire to the land,
unstoppable, a miracle,
Stormed the skies and tried
to become a god of man.
Wars and blood and enemies slain,
Not a soul would steal what’s mine,
Again and again, time in time,
It was all the same;
I watched the years drag by,
I watched my mother die,
Of an illness I could not understand nor fight,
I found my father with a knife in him one night,
A scene born from horrors; couldn’t understand why.
A thousand years later and
the stars would come down, every night,
Heavy indigo sky unending and cold
where ever I looked,
I laid silent on my self made bed of stone and gold,
Arms crossed, scars marred,
I had everything in the world,
everything and more,
I had nothing,
royal and alone.
A thousand years later,
when all of us then had passed away,
not a single person or shred that I could save,
there is not a grave, not stone nor statue,
not even a friend, a stranger,
to remember my name.