Today’s poem has come about from another project that I have just started today. I am writing a story (again). I have started countless stories in the past and never managed to finish them. I think that’s why I like poetry - its begun and ended in the same moment, sure you can spend your time refining and editing but the poem gets written, has form and life, a completeness before I have time to get bored of it. Stories are all together more challenging.
What I have decided to do to make this one better is write what I want. I love myths and folk tales, I love the gothic and I love a good bit of philosophical discussion along with romance and a consideration of identity and belonging. So that’s what I am writing.
Today’s poem has come from that. It isn’t that story but it is the theme that the variations will be built on.
To The Empty Hall
The water drip, drips onto the floor below.
I have had more names than breath
and seen all and everything come and go
from light and life to dust to death.
Countless golden thrones I have collected here
and filled a thousand palaces with my pleasure.
I have brought nations low, held men in tears
and all the while gathered in these countless treasures.
There’s not one alive that can surpass my glory
nor for that matter could the dead seek a claim
upon the form, the myth, the story
that has built empires in my name.
From all this horded gold and willing fools
I have built my fortress vast and mighty
and yet I possess not the knowledge nor the tools
to love and live again so lightly.
I sit now amongst my stolen gold
telling this empty hall the tales of old
and I can see there the stalagmite grow
as the water drip, drips onto the floor below.