Epic Poem (call for a collective project)

Dante was. O:)

:text-bump:

I’d try to write another line but i have little idea how to follow that one up.

  • After the priests had premeditated our victory, we killed the prisoners according to the custom, offered their souls to the Sun-Soul and as the Sun showed its face, we mounted the beasts.

I first had us kill and offer the priests, but realized there still was the confusing situation that we are going, riding on something, to a battle in apparently rough terrain, but have with us a trail of prisoners.

possibly, go back to Filmsnobs last line and work from there.

We contemplated whether to sell the rest of them or keep some of the women for ourselves.

The decision was made quickly and we were able to bestow honor and virtue on two girls of impeccable breed.

They clung to us, their fear of us overshadowed by the thought of remaining in their miserable state.

And with the chorus of lamentations behind us we continued forward hard hearted.

A Foreboding Thunderstorm called us to our appointed Route.

As lightning struck and took the life of a man and his horse, the word of the God rattled our bones.

Well we saw them as they entered the horizons deadly chord.
They went up in flames and appeared once more, larger to the eye.
Now they came running, with their spears ahead, horsed and deadly.
Many of us fell. The winter came to the heart of some and now
food was sparse.

A farm was robbed and the peasants were honored with mercy.
Our morale which had sunken began to lift with beer.
Outward on the ashen path of dusk the drunk wore out.
We knew our purpose lay bare to the heart but hidden to the eye.

The darkness gathered and we passed into an intermediate realm of time there-in.
Many of us had awoken, disturbed by the feral sirens of past hours.
Awoken too by our disconcerting fluttering of destiny, destiny to fill the space in the moonless sky.
Entranced by the stellar wind reflected off our eyes, no sleep, but dreams rather still.
Our fears thrown off into the outer veil, day break said goodbye to the restful, restless night.

One of the slave-women came toward me and was stopped by a guard.
He caught her by the neck, delicate like a swans, and smiled at her gasp.
I had him bring her to me and force her to her knees and let go.
When the guard was gone she looked up from the dusty soil and met my eye.
Her irises were turqouise but violent, the mark of a master-race.
She was not from this wilderness, I asked her her family tree.
Defiantly she stared and spat, not in my face for she valued her life
but on the ground and looked up and waited.

So I said fuck it and went to get a beer.

Um Smears, please go shit elsewhere.

[edit] well - let’s say this is your attempt at Epic lyricism… I suppose we can work around it.

My friend my long companion, through many wars, he of all people crept behind me holding a dagger glistening in the sunlight. The woman feigned not to notice him. Alas, he slew me, at first I knew not why, I layed on the ground, blood poring out my neck. Then I saw him help her up and I knew, sentimentality had got the better of him. Was it love or only a long estranged since of decorum that he had kept hidden from me? But, it mattered not his betrayal was complete. The final peice was when he kicked me aside as they left my presence without even enough regard to kill me quickly. I whispered, friend, if such is for me, then where does your loyality lie?

My only regret would have been not having recieved a proper burial, but as the wild dogs rushed towards me I knew that I would recieve a better by burial by them, in their dung heap, than by a friend such as him.

I just saw the edit, so Smears’ line was accepted into the poem? If so that character sure got his ass dragged out of the fire.

Wow, Smears - that was like divine intervention.
I just wrote this and only pressing submit I saw that there was this entry where the protagonist gets killed. What the hell.

The beer however had not been kept cold, and my chagrin was enhanced when I noticed that the guard was taking the woman to his tent. I halted him and handed him the stale beer. “Drink this!” I ordered, intending to take the woman for further questioning. There was little of intrigue this journey, and I keep to the surface of the few riddles that present themselves.

The guard now poured the beer into his throat and saluted a gaseous phrase. I nodded, and the woman looked on in dismay. She turned to face me and spoke: “You are wanderers, without soil or honor, you have no right to speak of family”. I praised the Gods and took her to the edge of the line of trees shielding us from the horizon. Perhaps we were closer to our purpose than we knew.