The Destoyer

[TheFeatheredÆtheling]

I charge undaunted o'er the land,
A shade with twelve, black wings;
All are gathered 'to my hand,
Lowly serfs to noble kings.

No one comprehends my stride;
No one knows my way.
Upon a pallid horse I ride,
Wand'ring night and day.

My tracks are marked by human tears,
And mourning is my train.
The prince am I of mankind's fears,
A sire of grief and pain.

Holding fast my bitter blade
And granted peerless might,
In countless watchful eyes arrayed,
Naught escapes my sight.

Divinely charged this sombre role
~A burden mine alone~
To extricate the human soul
From its fleshly throne.

Riches, knowledge, fame, and pride:
Each is stripped away.
Where, oh mortal, will you hide
On your appointed day?

For at that time, your fateful hour,
My blade shall find your head.
And yielding to my frightful power,
You'll join the foregone dead.

Through the heavens I shall bear
Your riven soul to meet
The One who sits exalted there:
Upon the judgement seat.

[Angelic Dissonance2]

I like it.... but if I may make a suggestion? This sounds like Death's answer to "....And who are you?" at a bar; perhaps add some narritive to it?

Write a poem that tells, "What Would Death Do?".

Perhaps have someone ask him questions, or put him in the position to save someone. It would be interesting.

[Murder.Of.Crows]

I like it as well. Very well done.

[KontanKarite]

I don't want to flame Aethling for writing a stupid poem, I want to tell those that thought it was good that they have incredibly horrible tastes.

This thing sounds like a death metal version of that silly prayer I said when I was a kid.

The poem, while cheesy, isn't the main problem I have with it. It's the nuances like capitalizing "The One" as if that's actually important because you know, god just NEEDS capital letters so that its honored and of course, once again, the glorification of the destructive aspects of a boring mythology.

Reading this was actually embarrassing.

[Sir Canvas Corpsey]

It got tired reading past the first stanza... it's kind of boring. While you manage to pull off an okay ABAB it still feels very clunky at points.

I did like the first stanza though.

[TheFeatheredÆtheling]

Angelic, thanks for the complement. Your suggestions are interesting, but death is a serious topic to me so I'll leave such quirky ideas for someone else to write.

Murder of Crows, thanks to you as well.

Kontan, your "death metal prayer" comment amuses me greatly. It wasn't my intention, but I can see how you'd make that comparison. However, the nuances here are undoubtedly the best thing about this poem (and there are many of them). Without mentioning "God", "angels", "Heaven", or "Hell" directly, the poem's meaning is clear. Capitalising "One" is a sign of respect as well a tradition, but "The.." in "The One..." is capitalised solely because it begins the line; after all, this isn't The Matrix.

Sir Canvas, I'm glad that you liked the first stanza. I actually preferred the latter half. Anyway, I revised this once recently before posting it here, but it still has inadequacies. Honestly, it's a rather difficult structure to write. Thanks for the input.

[Angelic Dissonance2]

Despite potential for quirkiness, you could actually pull off an exponentially more serious poem if you did take one of those suggestions. It would strike at the very heart of human experience as we question our own mortality and its purpose. I feel certain I've read examples... but right off hand, I can't think of them, and it's way too much bother to write all this shit and THEN go back and do research before pushing 'Post'--and having to log in again, because it took more than seven minutes. Nevertheless, I will try to look one up as an example.

[TheFeatheredÆtheling]

I didn't realise you were being serious. I'll be glad to hear about what you're referring to if you can find it.

[Angelic Dissonance2]

Perhaps 'Azrael's Count', by Rudyard Kipling, or Emily Dickinson's 'Because I Could Not Stop For Death'.

I feel quite certain that there is a specific poem I mean... but I can't put my finger on it.... I see images of a man in a desert, conversing with another man whom he comes to realize is Death himself.

[Sir Canvas Corpsey]

Oh! The title is shit. I forgot to mention that.

Death is death, we don't need a lame title to emphasize the destructive connotations of the personified death which along with death as peace and/or release has been done to death (lulz). Why don't you try writing a poem about death as mystery or death as limit?

[HumanePain]

"To extricate the human soul
From its fleshly throne. "

I thought it was good. The above is very visceral imagery.

[KontanKarite]

Honestly, I just can't relate. This doesn't make me feel profound about the human experience or death. It's pretty much just a religious wank fest that sounds sophomoric. Oddly enough, John Milton's poem Paradise Lost really spoke to me and his writing was totally religious. Then again, to be fair, it was about Lucifer and how completely badass he is and how truly human he is. That cat is a hero. I could talk all day long about Paradise Lost, but that's for another thread.

[Alan]

You know you shouldn't expect praise from me so I'll just say it

It really pisses me off that you're using shit like "o'er' and "wand'ring"
You ain't a 17th century poet. It would be justifiable (but still oh so pretentious) if it were to keep the meter, but there isn't a meter. You tried to, but your poem doesn't care whether it's ending in five, six, or seven syllables.

[Despanan]

Originally Posted by TheFeatheredÆtheling

However, the nuances here are undoubtedly the best thing about this poem (and there are many of them). Without mentioning "God", "angels", "Heaven", or "Hell" directly, the poem's meaning is clear.

I wouldn't really call stuff like:

Divinely charged this sombre role
~A burden mine alone~
To extricate the human soul
From its fleshly throne.

or

Through the heavens I shall bear
Your riven soul to meet
The One who sits exalted there:
Upon the judgement seat.

examples of "nuanced" writing. Those are really more blantant uses of religious language and imagery. Your description of death as riding a "pallid horse" and armed with a "bitter blade" is pretty much the popular grim-reaper trope played straight (though it seems to be a sword, not a scythe).

I don't really have a problem with your capitalization of "The One" as I would probaby do the same thing if I were to use that term to refer to God.

Overall, I would agree with Kontan's assesment of this poem as "Sophmoric" and I think it kinda does sound like a "Death Metal Prayer".

In that respect, it's a successful poem, as I assume that's what you wanted to write, a straightforward Medieval depiction of death in a Christian mythological context. Not really my thing, I perfer to play with established tropes but ehh, it's by no means the worst poem ever posted on this site.

I'd delete or re-write this stanza:

No one comprehends my stride;
No one knows my way.
Upon a pallid horse I ride,
Wand'ring night and day.

It's really just padding and doesn't add anything to what you're trying to say, except the fact that Death is on a horse. Referring to it as "Wand'ring" is also problematic, as for the rest of the poem, death seems to be very purpose driven and meticulous. I really don't see him just running around the world all willy-nilly reaping people when he accidentally runs into them.

[TheFeatheredÆtheling]

Sir Canvas, I chose "The Destroyer" for the title because Death is often referred to as "The Destroying Angel", but calling the poem the latter would have been spoon-feeding. My title is a bit weak as it is though; it sounds uninspired. As for the destructive connotations associated with Death, this was completely intentional. It may not be innovative, but innovation is not the point here.

Alan, I realise that this type of poetry sounds pretentious to many people (Apathy hasn't shown up, but he always hassles me about my use of dated language). I'm not avant-garde; in fact, I'm actually more of reactionary, I guess. My poetry will never appeal to a wide audience, but it doubtless appeals to some people. Though it's technically flawed (I can still fix it), this poem does actually have a relatively good metre. It's not the number of syllables in the line that's important; it's the number of stressed syllables and their placement in the line. Unstressed syllables can be added without breaking the rhythm, particularly in the beginning or ending of lines, depending on how obsessive you want to get about the pattern. Actually, most poetry leaves room for flexibility - sometimes a lot of flexibility. Consider the following excerpt from one of my personal favourites, Alfred Noyes' "The Highwayman":

He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

Notice the metre and syllable count. I realise that this is a different metre altogether, but you can still see that Noyes was far looser with his metre in the above poem than I've been in mine. It's fine though; he's a master, and his poem is a classic. Overall rhythm is the most important aspect of the technical side of poetry.

Despanan, You're right that the language is blatantly religious in places, but it's subtle enough for my intentions. I don't want my writing to be too cryptic for a person of normal education to understand its meaning. Writing a death metal prayer definitely wasn't my goal, and I'm not interested in fads. As you suspected though, I was trying to establish a mediæval mood. In fact, I decided to write this after seeing Hans Memling's "Last Judgment" Triptych. I agree with you completely that the second stanza should be eliminated. For the record, I read your works and would comment on them, but I don't know the first thing about drama.

Many thanks to all of you for your honest critique of my work.

[KontanKarite]

It's still pretty boring. I didn't enjoy it because it's pretty much just trollin' for Jesus.