the marching band's howling (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ashestosnow) wrote2012-06-06 06:15 pm
ashestosnow) wrote2012-06-06 06:15 pm
Companion pieces, on war [trigger warnings: brainwashing, child soldiers]
the child razes the city at sunrise
The air around her heats, as mine turns colder.
Her form is silver-crowned, smoke-wreathed and tanned,
And caged in monstrous ribs of iron to hold her
Against escape, against the tide unplanned
Of old memories, dulled though growing bolder;
Raging against that sole instilled command:
You are not flesh but blade, not child but soldier.
Show mercy not to them. Stay not your hand.
I see the buildings spark, then start to smoulder,
And there lay down my honour and my brand.
It would not matter less if she was older;
Still she was one too young to understand.
armour of war
In darkened dreams I am that behemoth
That rose up from the shadows, shrieking, shuddering,
Like living flesh, yet forged of iron and wrath,
Hunched over, blackened, homeless-man-like huddling.
A tortured beast, yet tortured more its guide,
Her frame contorted into its resemblance;
From pain or fear, which, I cannot decide,
And dare not dredge up from my past remembrance.
I am controlled, yet commander am I,
At once the vehicle and the cold entrapment
That circles her warm brow and chokes thereby
Her memories of this cruel scheme's enactment.
I feel her strength resurge against my grasp;
I pray release, yet find my grip redoubling;
Though sickened by this violence, her pained gasp,
I countenance she's plagued by thoughts less troubling.
With shock I waken, memories of steel
And acrid vapours crushing in their gravity;
Still less to bear than knowledge time can't heal,
That outside dreams, I sanctioned this depravity.
Two poems: the first is my submission to![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
poetree's contest, though in honesty I prefer the second. I concede, however, that it might be a little too personal (and for many readers, abstract) to fit the theme. In many ways, they're companion pieces, hence my posting them together.
The air around her heats, as mine turns colder.
Her form is silver-crowned, smoke-wreathed and tanned,
And caged in monstrous ribs of iron to hold her
Against escape, against the tide unplanned
Of old memories, dulled though growing bolder;
Raging against that sole instilled command:
You are not flesh but blade, not child but soldier.
Show mercy not to them. Stay not your hand.
I see the buildings spark, then start to smoulder,
And there lay down my honour and my brand.
It would not matter less if she was older;
Still she was one too young to understand.
armour of war
In darkened dreams I am that behemoth
That rose up from the shadows, shrieking, shuddering,
Like living flesh, yet forged of iron and wrath,
Hunched over, blackened, homeless-man-like huddling.
A tortured beast, yet tortured more its guide,
Her frame contorted into its resemblance;
From pain or fear, which, I cannot decide,
And dare not dredge up from my past remembrance.
I am controlled, yet commander am I,
At once the vehicle and the cold entrapment
That circles her warm brow and chokes thereby
Her memories of this cruel scheme's enactment.
I feel her strength resurge against my grasp;
I pray release, yet find my grip redoubling;
Though sickened by this violence, her pained gasp,
I countenance she's plagued by thoughts less troubling.
With shock I waken, memories of steel
And acrid vapours crushing in their gravity;
Still less to bear than knowledge time can't heal,
That outside dreams, I sanctioned this depravity.
Two poems: the first is my submission to
poetree's contest, though in honesty I prefer the second. I concede, however, that it might be a little too personal (and for many readers, abstract) to fit the theme. In many ways, they're companion pieces, hence my posting them together.