The English Civil War

4 June 2010 | Filed Under Poetry 

I had a long day working and driving across state lines, so enjoy this poem I wrote fall of my 3rd year. I don’t remember who said/wrote the quote at the top, I think it was from something we read in the class.

The English Civil War

“…words are the poet’s enemies, conspirators, and only allies”

“FIRE!”
Punctuation shot toward the enemy, slicing off the tails of p’s and q’s alike, leaving their weary and dried-up soldiers like Pretty, Nice, Good, and Bad to flail on the paper battlefield that is poetry.

“LOAD THE COMMAS!” I roar from my horse.
“We re out of commas Sir!” my faithful Captain A shouted.
“THEN LOAD THE PERIODS!” I demand.
“You just used the last one Sir”

“BLAST!” I dont know why I shout so but I must to strike fear into the inky hearts of our foes “THEN DRAW YOUR WEAPONS! WE WILL PREVAIL FOR RHYME AND REASON ARE ON OUR SIDE!”

Rhyme and Reason decide now would be an opportune moment to retreat and they flee to the safety of the read line that holds other neutral words from entering the war
“Never mind them!” loyal Captain The yells down the lines “Prepare for battle!”
“CHARGE MY EMBOLDENED SOLDIERS CHARGE!”

A and The led the assault pens pencils even paintbrushes held high for freedom Nothing had nothing to lose but words are a large price to pay for written printed and bound immortality Some of the abstract ideals of Honor Love and Death that cannot be held down by mere letters flew over the field searching for the next likely victim

You stabbed The with your illegal keyboard until his letters had slipped into each others places and Teh fell before my eyes “NOOO!” I cry but he is gone

This loss only spurs my soldiers on to greater heights – a likely feat considering       two-dimensional space allowed them       fighting bleeds over       page in blue and black ink and       gray graphite of       in-between of a war      likes of which language has never seen before and will never see again if they only had       eyes to see it in       first place

war raged on and on until as one       armies turned toward the center of       page indented twice to       right and a single chess piece       all powerful queen toppled onto         desk and rolled to a stop

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