Fenrir's Musings

[Fenrir]

Hi, attempting to create poetry after a long time :) So I had an idea about a poem and I'm penning it down here. It's in blank verse since I'm not so good in meters and rhymes and syllables. Anyways, I hope you'll like it. It not yet done. There'll be more in this poem. This is just the view of the first character.

Game of Life

The Pawn
I go only forward, and forward only.
From the beginning till the the end
To go on till I reach their corner.
For there, they say I'll get my reward.
Yet, is this all there is? Is life all but struggle and strife?
Is it all but to cut or cut down, to work and enslave?

Glory, Fame and Ambition: those companions of the brave,
beautiful yet oh so fleeting! Are they enough?
If once I go through enemy phalanxes,
Can I contend with the Powers that be?
Yes, I too can be a Queen,
a Knight
a Bishop,
or so they say.
I have to get there first, for that its worth.
What do I fight for? For whom do I strive and why?
Must life be constant strife? No sublime beauty and divine mystery?
It is all just a jumble of machines, devices, and mechanisms?
No compassion, love, and lofty ideals?

They said there's no high, no low. "For all are equal."
Then from where come Kings and Pawns?
The King I envy. All-powerful and irreplaceable.
The game revolves around him, but behind he remains.
Why is the game such? They said there's no high, no low.
"For all are equal"- lies! Why pawns must die while Kings prosper?
And yet, is it also not true? That if there are no pawns, no knights, no Kings,
There won't be a Game of Chess, and of Life?
"For if all are equal," can this game be played?

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Aye Fenrir, how nice! Good to see you back. I must have missed your joining back in June. Sorry for that. Aww don't worry about the meters of rhymes, I am neither good with them. This is a new promise and something to look forward to, see it updated. It is nice poem, it pictures well what it is about. Thanks for sharing!

[Fenrir]

Thanks @Aikári Salmarinian! :) It's all right I RP sporadically on here nowadays.
Hey do you think the poem is too clear and leaves little to imagination? Should it be more 'abstract' or more have more personifications and other literary instruments?

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Hey Fenrir! No, I think you have balanced it out well. And a sentence in the first alinea "My life is forfeit to the nation and family I serve" could ask for new part what explains the (grounded) reasons for the forteit of the life to the nation and the family to serve. I think there could be very interesting subject behind it, that peaks the interest. The second alinea is the reason questioning of the person involved: 'what is it all worth?' Alinea three is quite enticing in a beautiful way, deep and personal. Good luck with the expansion, if you have yet to create it.

Bit more personification? I think there is enough in it with the central I-person. What this person expresses, is what carries and binds the poem together. Abstract works if the subject is not something alive. I-person creates a sort of 'tell me poem'. And the I-person share what (s)he wants. Put you it into a h/she perspective it is more distant and gets abstract closer. That is what I think. I can be wrong off course.

[Morfindel]

Very deep thoughts here. Though it seems the narrator speaks from a distant time, the sentiments are highly relevant to the modern world which demands we become blind to the differences that nevertheless are the foundations of humanity and allow society to function. There will always be kings and pawns...