Poem: "Dreams of Ink"

[ysabetwordsmith]

This is today's freebie, inspired by a prompt from dialecticdreamer. It belongs to the series Path of the Paladins.


"Dreams of Ink"
-- a decastich


It is a dream that does not fade,
When dawn's light overtakes the glade,
Of thorns and blossoms, berries too,
All decked about in morning dew.
Already he's bestowed his heart,
And not upon the God of Art,
So why this vision that won't go?
It's nettlesome, it breaks the flow,
And Johan knows not what to think.
He sleeps again, and dreams of ink.

* * * 

Notes:

A decastich is any poem of exactly 10 lines.  It is often free verse, but it can use rhyme/meter, as this one does.

Comments

Lovely

[dialecticdreamer]

I think it captures the lure of ink for those who feel it, and it's gorgeous imagery besides.

Nettlesome.

8-)

Re: Lovely

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I think it captures the lure of ink for those who feel it, and it's gorgeous imagery besides. <<

Yay! I still need to do the long poem about actually getting the ink, because there's some important stuff in there, but this is a kind of setup that was needed and I didn't realize until you prompted.

>> Nettlesome.

8-) <<

Heh, yeah. Johan has a real push-pull feeling here, and he's confused about why it's even happening. So it itches and prickles at him, gets under his skin, distracts him when he's trying to think of something else.

Re: Lovely

[dialecticdreamer]

It's definitely needing the buildup if the ink's as important to the story arc as your notes implied!

I love how you took the /simplest/ form, almost free verse, and made it more structured, more decorated... flourishes and swirls, rather than rigid restrictions.

Re: Lovely

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> It's definitely needing the buildup if the ink's as important to the story arc as your notes implied! <<

That's what I realized, yes. The ink is ... less a thing unto itself, and more a process that links other vital things together. And it's something that Johan has to agree to.

You may have noticed that he's not very good at agreeing to anything.

>> I love how you took the /simplest/ form, almost free verse, and made it more structured, more decorated... flourishes and swirls, rather than rigid restrictions. <<

Yay! Often I find that shorter forms need more structure to hold them together.

[thnidu]

Lovely, although I will have to reread some of Path of the Paladins to recover the context.

Drop the second T. These lines (στίχοι) may be sown, but they are not sewn.

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>Lovely, although I will have to reread some of Path of the Paladins to recover the context.<<

Yay! I'm glad you liked it. I finished the sequel too.

>> Drop the second T. These lines (στίχοι) may be sown, but they are not sewn. <<

Change made, but it was spelled "decastitch" in the reference originally cited.

Re: Thank you!

[thnidu]

Sorry - my phrasing /was/ brusque, wasn't it? I don't remember what the spelling was in your link that I followed. But I knew "hemistich", and I know you're sharp with languages and poetic forms, so I thought you'd like to know.

*OFF-TOPIC ALERT*

[msstacy13.livejournal.com]

I decided to change my war correspondent's newspaper to a fictional one.
I'm leaning toward the Omaha Daily News,
but I thought people might have fun suggesting possible combinations of merged papers...

http://msstacy13.livejournal.com/3633292.html