English verse forms – radical druid

Out There: rime royal

Published on June 23, 2025

You cannot heal a thing by using hate.
That salve infects a wound and makes it burn,
then die and rot. Then it is far too late
to blame the medicine you chose to take
for giving you results you didn’t see.
There’s no returning from such a mistake,
no happiness can bloom from enmity.

You cannot build a lasting thing with spite.
A mortar mixed in this way will not hold,
and starts to crumble when exposed to light.
No matter the great wisdom of your plan,
or skills you may employ to shape and frame,
the end result is flawed and will not stand.
You just replace one evil with the same.

You cannot change unless you understand
the world is what it is because of you,
and is by your own doing, shifting sand.
To learn the words for healing, you must seek
beyond the edges of the map you know.
Out there, past right and wrong, past strong and weak,
is where, to find the future, we must go.

23 Jun 2025

It Is Their Flag: roundelay

Published on May 12, 2017

Almost in spite, some fools seem to keep trying.
They seek a balance where mad chaos reigns;
they fight for life, despite death’s constant sighing,
giving their all for sake of what remains.
It is their flag that in the dark stays flying,
and puts self-serving cowardice to shame.

They fight for life despite death’s constant sighing,
giving their all for sake of what remains.
With courage and resolve near mystifying,
in ignorance of weariness or pain,
it is their flag that in the dark stays flying,
and puts self-serving cowardice to shame.

With courage and resolve near mystifying,
in ignorance of weariness and pain,
they sacrifice themselves; and in their dying,
release the world from its enslaving chains.
It is their flag that in the dark stays flying,
and puts self-serving cowardice to shame.

They sacrifice themselves, and in their dying,
release the world from its enslaving chains,
for future generations, signifying
the truth it is important to retain.
It is their flag that in the dark stays flying,
and puts self-serving cowardice to shame.

12 MAY 2017

The Wind’s Words: roundel

Published on May 12, 2017

Who can say what words the wind has spoken,
when cast out in the night, it has its say?
Its speech slips out in whispers, clipped and broken.
Who can say

what language that it speaks, to curse, or pray;
and what translation key exists, what token,
to know its words, first heard at break of day?

So many lonely years it speaks, heartbroken,
unanswered in misunderstood wordplay.
What conversation passes with the woken?
Who can say?

12 MAY 2017

Tag: English verse forms

Out There: rime royal

It Is Their Flag: roundelay

The Wind’s Words: roundel