What-ho chaps! It's been a loooong time.
How have you been?
Right, too much Portal for Splat.
So, the possibly-monthly writing competitions I mentioned when I started this thread (back a million years ago) turned out to be disappointingly un-monthly. But as I said when I posted them, the stuff I was writing for those competitions was never that good, so it's no great loss. I have been writing a bit since the last time I posted any sort of fiction on OWF, but it has been a relatively barren few months. Bits and pieces have come, but since most of them are dwarf-ideas for stories that might one day get written, they won't be appearing here.
So why am I posting, I hear you cry? Because I do have something to post.
I've written... a poem!
I don't normally do that. I'm not great at poetry, especially the non-silly kind (
C.F. Cloudy Apple Juice). But I've had this idea knocking around my head basically ever since I bought the awesome CD, 'Book of Silk' by Tin Hat Trio, and heard the track,
Lauren's Lullaby. It just inspired this in my head and I tried writing it as a story, which was a disaster. So today, bored to tears of computer games (too much Portal, Splat), I suddenly felt the desire to just write it, as it is in my head. So I ended up with a really free-form, structureless poem.
And here it is, bearing in mind it's very much a first draft (written a few hours ago). Since I'm occasionally nagged for over-analysing my own writing, I'll leave it at that.
It has the same title as the song it grew out of.
Lauren’s Lullaby
In Lauren’s lullaby
There is a princess
On the turrets of a tower,
Looking down on undulating hills
That roll to sun-bright horizons.
There are forests of wolves,
Mountains of ice
And somewhere is a knight
In shining armour
On a white horse
Who looks for her and doesn’t know it.
She wears a scarlet dress and
Hides feathers and secrets from the witch who guards her
And she waits.
In Lauren’s lullaby
There is a cave
With a troll
And three brave children who
Battle it with wits and words
To win its treasure
And escape its jaws.
It has never seen the sun
And so they beat it, return to the bright world above
And use its gold to free slaves,
End tyranny,
Win hope.
In Lauren’s lullaby
There is a swan
That sings words in human speech
More beautiful than flowers in spring,
More haunting than autumn moonlight.
In a stone room, a crumbled cottage
The swan turns into a beautiful,
Sorrowful girl. She has a chain around her neck and waits
For the chance to win her freedom
And her heart.
In Lauren’s lullaby
There is a soldier in a pit.
As fire and death surround him he
Remembers all he fights for,
All he will return to.
Green trees,
Laughing rivers,
Chaste promises with a pretty, humble girl.
For now he fights, does evil,
And treasures memories more than dragons’ gold.
In Lauren’s lullaby
Is an old woman,
Dying in a hospital bed.
She has kind, dark eyes,
A loving smile.
She remembers a world of dancing,
Jazz, community and colour.
She says, “I watched the world change.
Things were bigger then.
Small men were heroes and
People talked.”
In Lauren’s lullaby
There are stars that will burn forever;
History changes around bonfires on dark nights.
There are toffee apples, fairground rides,
Elephants in a zoo,
Cars flashing past a small girl on a roadside.
Dragons fly and breathe wonders,
Cursed kingdoms are trapped in ice
Awaiting heroes.
There are rockets and locks,
Lost treasures behind forgotten doors,
Safe, strong hands
And loving words.
In Lauren’s lullaby
There are promises and stories
Older and younger than the sun.