Roleplaying verses

 

Most of these were written on commission, in the persona of the bardic character I like to play on muds. So they’re supposed to be archaic.

A Sonnet

Describe the eyes; I fail. Describe the face:
I try, but nothing seems to match in song
The visage in my mind. There is no place
In metaphor that serves to sing my longing.

So. Perhaps none can, none will, not now,
Nor ever, understand the passion pent
Within my heart. No verse will serve, no loud
Declaiming, quiet whispers, letters sent.

If I, with words at my command, cannot
Convey my love even to myself–such
Small hope have I of my love knowing what
Resides within my heart! Small hope–yet much

Is said by silence and a knowing glance;
Enough, indeed, this invitation to the dance.

 

*

“She Walks like a Ghost”

She walks like a ghost, gliding translucent,
Hair swirling madly in fingers of wind.
Where are the hands to cup her cold cheeks?
To warm her pale skin with blushes and sin?
She is the rusalka, the spirit, the Gypsy;
She is the lonely, the lovelorn, the lost…
Yet even the shades that walk in the shadows
Must feel love–and must know its cost.

 

*

Elegy for Kiera

I miss her gray eyes with twinkles of murder,
This sister of mine who is gone;
She walked the knife edge of civilization
And preyed on the meek and the strong.
She took life as she found it, usually by force,
And left behind empty hearts and a corpse.

She baited her rivals with words tinged with wry,
This sister of mine who is gone.
She struck from behind and betrayed unacquainted
And never stayed good friends for long.
She took love as she found it, often by stealth
And robbed men of life and good health.

I miss her small smile as she faced her dark future–
This sister of mine who is gone;
She knew just how empty the nights could extend
When one sells people’s lives for a song.
She loved life and she lost it, perhaps lost even more,
This Kiera I miss, this sister, this soul sold past darkness’ door.

*

Warning, these are dirty. These were part of a limerick war on LegendMUD, and were improvised by my character.

A limerick contest was started
By those who believed themselves artists
But their verse was a bomb
Delivered sans aplomb
And only last place was awarded.

Some men see themselves as satyrs–
Insatiable, sexy, bed-baiters.
Let’s talk about grooming–
Hairy legs and horns looming
Won’t make the satyr able to sate her.

This girl thought herself a vixen
And dined upon men with the fixin’s
But all the red dresses
Got stained with the messes
When she failed to get all of her licks in.

Bad verse tends to the salacious;
Bodily functions amaze us.
Public mitosis
And bad halitosis
And limericks tend not to be gracious.

The limerick’s a low form of verse
As humor, just bad puns rank worse.
But that’s not the nadir–
Nobody gets PAID here
For literarily analyzaling our ums and ers.

Poor guy uses verse as a crutch
For seduction and loving and such
But pens are too weak
And lead him to weep–
Just not meant for holding up such!

Some spurn her hairstyle’s mess
It ain’t nice and arranged with a dress
But men know that rumpled’s
A girl who once tumbled
And decided thereafter to rest.

The last limerick has been spoken–
Quick, before English gets broken.
Flash and no substance
Romance with no love dance
Poem fires no one put smoke in.