Child's Play
The parched and thirsty ground drank
their sweat, their tears, their blood.
Beaten backward, the leftmost flank
allowed the enemy, rank on rank,
to pour about them like a flood.
Crackling in their midst, with a thud,
Warmage Alexos stabbed and smashed.
Wading through the hellish mud,
he made the enemy turn and scud.
His singing blade through them slashed.
To meet him, a fell champion bashed
through the chaff flowing away.
To left, to right, his hammer crashed,
while from his eyes a red light flashed;
from hands, dark powers to rend and flay.
The looming combat held sway
o’er those in safety and in peril -
breathless. The fate of the day -
hanging - who would die, who would slay?
The sun, the clouds, the wind, stood still.
Both demon and mage felt the thrill
of gamblers laying cards all-in.
Experts in war, in the art of the kill,
they fought each other on that hill,
“Alex, come down to the kitchen!”
Alex
quickly
scrambled
dinner-ward.
Tossed about,
the toys lay,
patiently,
to play.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://i.imgur.com/8HUNBAb.png)
Most of my poems have been built on something like the Old English alliterative style, but I decided with this to follow something like what Robert Frost did in The Road Not Taken and Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening.
Thanks to @geekorner for his comments and critiques.
Thanks to the Isle of Write for a place to talk about writing and improve.
Home for Christmas
Going (?) Mad
Endeavor
![IOW COLOR LOGO.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmYc3Ncto2Q52AeT5TKxTuyoCNtYnY5Ytze7hEU8hiNonj/IOW%20COLOR%20LOGO.png)
art courtesy of @PegasusPhysics
Let's not have dinner tonight! Your words draw me into the scene inside the Alex's head. While reading I kept thinking of some game I was recently playing, and imaging its characters battling it out. Excellent write yet again :)
Thanks! Yeah, it may have been more realistic to have him NOT run to dinner. :D Maybe I am too fixated on food myself.
As adult, I am too! but as a child, it would be 30 minutes of "COMING!!"
A very nice poem this, i like your style. We would love to welcome you in Poets United, the only community that caters only to poets! https://discord.gg/h2qSjD
Followed and upvoted!
The turn caught me completely off guard here, @whoshim, and immediately pulled me into the nostalgia fueled memories of my own adventures and triumphs that spanned the globe from the corner of my room as a tyke.
Glad too that the battle of good vs even could be suspended for something as important as the evening meal - priorities are important!
Thank you for sharing, mate, fun read.
Thanks for the comment. Sorry I didn't reply sooner.
I am glad it was surprising. I was not sure about the title. I wanted it to be meaningful without giving too much away.