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Reflect · Poetry Minific ·
Organised by Anon Y Mous
Word limit 50–1000

Original fiction.

Show rules for this event
Replaced
The changeling child—left in a crib
where infant cries were like a glib
plea to parents ears—changed love for fears.

Raised as their own and given things,
but granting in return just stings
of words so cruel they added fuel
to the bond that once was held so tight
but now is drained by this parasite,
it feeds on love and grows as their relationship does decompose.

Older now and dark of mood,
the changeling spawn loses similitude.
With bulging eyes and lengthened claws,
the glamour cast will hide its flaws
from those who'd see his actuality.

Meanwhile, the child who'd been stolen
grew to find he had no control in
the periled life that came to be his hazardous reality.

A servant's lot in elfin home,
he played the part to groom and comb
the fairy princess—a child of the queen,
thin and frail like a string bean.
With commands absurd, she cut with word
the young man’s hope but spurred
his thoughts to find a way to slip his bonds and lords betray.

He wooed her heart with bond and pledge
and deeds designed to drive a wedge
between the queen and her young spawn
before the princess’ thoughts move on.

With distraction and a sleeping spell—
a human witch had taught him well—
he snuck inside the queen's household
and took a knife of iron cold
to cut apart the spells of fae when he made his getaway.

The next task: to learn the path
to escape from fae dogs' wrath.
He bribed the meekest of the fair folk
by executing a practical joke.
With iron dusted on a seat,
the outcome was to be sore beat,
but in his cell, he learned routes well.

When next the queen and child fought
and retreated to their rooms distraught,
the desperate boy convinced the lass
that they should take supplies and pass
from realms of twilight to lands of day'n'night.

They left their home with stealth and glamour,
but the meekest fae did raise a clamor.
The lass mistreated him so he
had filled his heart with jealousy.
As he watched the young pair go, he struck his vengeful blow.

The cry raised did call a hunt
with queen and hounds at the forefront.
With howl and jeer, the host caused fear
as the young pair picked up their pace
and turned towards the goblin marketplace.

They fled through crowds, past stalls and thralls
until they came to the coffee house and falls.
Inside the patrons drank and spoke
while flowing water crashed and broke
in troughs and down a darkened hole
that they'd go through by paying toll.

He thrust the lass at the barkeep
despite the way she cried and weep'd.
"I'm sorry but it's not my place
and I'll not again see your fair face.
My home is in another world."
And with that said he hurled
his body through the waterway
and swam and kicked through frothy spray
till out he came in sunny brook
then laughed and cried until he shook.

His parents were both dead long since
and he could not a care evince
for how the world had changed
since from his youth he was estranged.

Time passes different in their realm
and industry did overwhelm
the simple world from which he hailed
but now a new lay to him unveiled.
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#1 · 1
· · >>Bachiavellian >>Trick_Question
This reminds me of beat poetry, where the phrasing is more deliberately steered to forming repeated patterns of rhymes. The only problem with that (for me, anyway) is that this kind of thing is usually used to demonstrate off-the-cuff prowess, like how quickly the poet can come up with these things off the top of his head. I even need some bongos along with it...

Anyway, to the story. It's a bit easier to analyze a poem that tells a story.

I'm not up on the lore surrounding this kind of changeling, so I'm relying on what I can get from the poem's text. As I understand it, this boy was swapped with a changeling, who was terrible to the human parents, so that he would be pressed into service to the fae queen. But then I get confused about whether the female he's escaping with is the queen or someone else. At first I thought the queen, but then the queen is pursuing them, and then I have no idea who she is. Maybe one of the meekest ones you mention, except there would have to be more than one, since someone of that description raised the alarm.

I like the narrative, but there are two things that just don't carry a lot of weight. Enough attention is given to this companion of his that she seems important, yet I never really learn anything about her or why she wants to accompany him, then he throws her away rather easily. Then there's the big twist at the end that so much time has passed and his world is no longer recognizable to him, but it's not presented as anything more than a cold fact. What does that mean for him? He's so ho-hum about it that he doesn't seem to care, which is a strange sentiment to end on.
#2 · 1
·
I really like your rhyme and meter, here. It does a great job of evoking the feeling of a folk poem, and I think the breaks in the beat were well-done to add emphasis.

A couple of technical points to note: if I'm not mistaken, in a 'traditional' format like this, you're supposed to (1) capitalize the beginning of every line, whether or not it is the start of a sentence and/or clause, and (2) you're supposed to read without pause from one line to the next, unless there's a punctuation mark at the end of the line. Not major, but notable.

As for the story, I also quite liked it. It's paced a little slow at first, before we switch to the boy's POV, but by the time I was about halfway through, I was fully engrossed.

I think what >>Pascoite might have missed was that the boy's companion is the daughter of the Fae queen, whom he has tricked/manipulated into assisting him. But if someone else is seeing something that I'm not, feel free to let me know!

Overall, this is definitely one of my favorites from this round. Thank you for entering!
#3 ·
· · >>Trick_Question
The rhythm and rhyme mostly work, as does the odd structure.
#4 · 1
·
I don't agree with >>LoftyWithers about the rhythm. The cadence was so terribly off for me I ended up reading it as straight prose and it was much better that way.

I agree with >>Pascoite that the protagonist doesn't quite do it for me. I'd rather have less background color and more character depth here. I think in general this could benefit by trimming down.
#5 · 2
· · >>The_Letter_J
For my part:

I would've liked this a lot better with a more regular meter and form and with fewer examples of twisting the sentences out of shape to make the rhymes work. But then Keats does this same sort of thing—check out his Lamia, for instance—and he's totally famous and stuff. :)

As for the story, we spend the first few stanzas focused on the fairy child in the human world, but we never come back to him. Having him at the beginning led me to expect some sort of confrontation when the grown-up human child returns, so the lack of closure at the end leaves me all itchy. I'm also unsure about some of the details during the course of things. Where did the human child meet the human witch who "taught him well" if he's been a servant in the fairy queen's palace his entire life? When he bribes "the meekest of the fair folk" to make good his escape, what goes wrong to have him end up in prison? And the sequence of events: our guy woos the princess, then tries the unsuccessful escape, then goes back to wooing the princess from his jail cell? I need a few more steps filled in for me to follow it all, I guess.

Mike
#6 · 1
·
I enjoyed the story this tells, but I agree with >>Baal Bunny that it needs a few more details filled in for the story to flow better. And the last stanza just seems a bit lacking to me. It doesn't really wrap up the story, in my opinion, it just tells us that a lot of time has passed in the human world. But since he was taken from the human world when he was an infant, he shouldn't have any memory of how it was before anyway. I think it might have been better if you got rid of the last stanza or two and then either ended it there or cut back to either the daughter or the changeling for a final stanza or two. The changeling might be the better option because you started with it too.