Alone in the Heavens
The man at the bar manages to
maintain composure in the midst of
the crowd, all clamoring for more
songs and drinks, singing and laughing.
He's far from home and all
familiar things, facing a new
city and job situation, wondering,
staring glass-eyed, sadly, at his gin.
The first day of work felt awful,
and the leak in his lodgings
would take some time to fix,
and - there were too many ands...
The gin was good but just
too much for his money to stretch
for another, so, folding his wallet,
up he stood and exited the joint.
The triple moons of Treiton IV
smiled down sweetly on him.
"A man cannot even find moon-solace here,
unlike with lovely Luna," he sighed.
This is likely to be my last attempt at a short poem in the Old English alliterative style. After writing this, I reread Tolkien's The Fall of Arthur, and I see that a longer, slower-moving poem in this style should work better. Also, I need to have more adjective/noun pairs and adverb/verb pairs, and fewer prepositions, in order to keep things more lively. I have started on an epic with those things in mind.
Thanks for reading!
I feel as if I'm a bit guilty of the conclusion you've reached. This piece did pass under my editor's pen, and I noted I had nothing to add or remove from it, that it was perfectly fine as it was, but that I felt it read like poetic prose, or just like segment of a story, not like poetry proper.
And Whoshim, I think as if capturing small moments is one of the best things poetry can do. I wonder if it is indeed an issue of this form in particular that lends itself to epics, or whether more work could be had to get more done in less, as you've done with the piece covering your earliest memory, and the one about the children.
But hey, this piece does flow very well.
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