Silence

[Hjolnai]

I stand in the Void

magically held

watching, in silence, a battle.

 

Explosions sear,

fire bursts forth,

but all, in the Void, is null.

 

No sound, no heat, no fire

can be seen to last but a second

 

For in the Void,

all is dark,

save the stars,

burning eternally.

 

All is silent,

as all is absent.

Without magic, none survive.

 

Yet somehow

the scientists manage.

They built great ships,

which now battle

and explode in silence,

for one thing they did not predict.

Madness.

 

For that is another thing

my magic keeps at bay;

the void holds little,

the mind too much.

In this, at least,

Science is held back

and magic may remain.

 

 

 

Yes, this work has somewhat insane use of stanza lengths, and probably doesn't make very good use of the format of poetry, but I'm tired, and I felt like making something up to refresh myself. The concept, more than the writing, is what I hope to be conveyed for now, but maybe later I'll be prepared to put more time into it, making it somewhat more uniform, and hopefully better-written overall. Feel free to comment in the meantime, though.

[Hjolnai]

Since I have again been working on an essay for English, I again feel like writing fiction-based poetry (to clear my head), so I think I'll try to clear up this poem into a slightly less disastrous form, following the format of the first two stanzas.

 

I stand in the Void

magically held

watching, in silence,

a battle.

 

Explosions sear,

fire bursts forth,

but all, in the Void,

is null.

 

A great ship flies past,

disintegrating rapidly.

Still I hear nothing.

Time flows on.

 

At last, this battle

seems almost to cease

One side flees,

the other stays.

 

A monolith approaches.

A door opens

A human in silver

floats out.

 

His bubbled head nods,

he points and gestures,

indicating the door.

I follow.

 

I find myself

in a place so foul

I can hardly bear

to stay.

 

The ships of Science

were never meant

to come deep through here,

the Void.

 

 

I seem to have taken this in a different direction to the one I was going earlier; I'll probably try something I've never done before: rewriting completely differently a few times (as opposed to simply editing the structure already complete), and decide on which direction to go in.

If anyone has any comments, I'd be most appreciative.

[Quincunx]

Very good revision; it tightened the wandering strains of poetic prose into a poem and only set it into the meter afterward. For the next use of the raw material, could you try writing out the story in the first post in purely story form to preserve it intact, since that didn't happen in this revision?

 

As for the poem--it did take me two readings to realize the narrator was outside the ship of Science and invited inside; I think that changing "in" to 'inside' in the second-to-last stanza, or a similar tweaking of a single preposition, would have made that clearer. There's a missing stop (not distinctly half or full, but given it isn't a glaring omission, probably a half-stop would be better) after "cease". The next-to-last line is a tad strange and not just for the length of it. It might be that "come deep" was a placeholder for a richer short verb, since rich words like "monolith" and "null" were acceptable earlier--'venture', 'strike', 'disturb' replacing nearly the entire line?

[Hjolnai]

Thanks for your feedback,

I guess it makes sense to put the raw material in a prose form first to hold the story together, and I'll bear that in mind next time.

 

Now that I look at it again, I see what you mean about "inside" being better, and I'll try "within" for now.

As for "Come deep through here", I think I just couldn't remember any effective synonyms, which is why the line ended up so unwieldy.

I've also written a second half for the poem, but I'm not sure if it fits; being in a different format may not be suitable, even taking it as a turning point in the poem. The last stanza was accidentally left off when I began writing again, and I don't think it really fits with the new content, although at present nothing is set in stone. I may end up going back to that direction, since I'm writing this with such an indecisive approach anyway. In any case, I'll most likely make the new portion a single format, although not the same as the first half (longer lines and/or more per stanza).

 

I stand in the Void

magically held

watching, in silence,

a battle.

 

Explosions sear,

fire bursts forth,

but all, in the Void,

is null.

 

A great ship flies past,

disintegrating rapidly.

Still I hear nothing.

Time flows on.

 

At last, this battle

seems almost to cease

One side flees,

the other stays.

 

A monolith approaches.

A door opens

A human in silver

floats out.

 

His bubbled head nods,

he points and gestures,

indicating the door.

I follow.

 

I find myself

within a place so foul

I can hardly bear

to stay.

 

Unflickering,

pale light flows

through steel corridors,

as stale air seeps

through my arcane bubble.

Here, away from the dark emptiness

I begin to pity

the wielders of the dark arts

of Technology.

 

They are lost,

for the majesty of existence

is ignored in favour

of assigning a number

or an explanation

and taking no notice

of the innate beauty,

which cannot be conveyed

with a number.

 

On my world, however,

Magic is a way of life.

No such unnatural light, ours;

for our arcane lights shine

as though natural, or glow with flame

and the beauty of the land

is unmarred by poisons,

poured out by the tonne.

 

Now I stand in a large room,

where many Technologists

glare at me, gabbling questions

in their strange tongue.

I raise my hands and incant,

and now what they say is clear

They wish to know how I survived in the Void, which they call "space",

but my answer they will not accept;

magic.

 

Now hostile, they are,

made so by fear and confusion.

Seeing strange weapons directed upon me,

I realise it is time to leave.

Twisting the gold ring on my finger,

my head aches as I feel the pull

and I stand clearly on good soil.

The sun shines strongly,

and the land has a serenity of its own.

This must not be spoiled by Science.