- Non-Erotic Poetry
- If Richard's Horse Could Speak
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Young Squire, steal me! Chivalry is dead.
Two wasp-waist maidens from the village scream
for God inside our tents. As for the priest
to whom God promised victory, he's drunk.
I smelled it in his robe, a smell as rank
as slop from sties where pigs have shat and pissed.
This stink is called the War of Roses, Boy,
its petals white and red. The white are dead,
but no one ever saw them wither. Christ!
I'd rather ride with outlaws in the Pale
and know it's cattle that I'm dying for
than take a pike for Richard, House of York.
His kingdom, Aye, is no place for a horse.
- COMMENTS
Tsothaalmost 10 years agoYou had me laughing with the title and the first line. I don't know if that was your intention, but imagining this opinionated horse was very funny to me. Especially so since he sounds very wise. Carrying a royal ass sounds like dishonest work to me. Each line adds to the smile on my face, and the second stanza is a bit more serious, with the horse grown cynic. Very good sounds throughout the poem, especially so in the first stanza. I'd give this a 6 or a 7 if I could!
Magnetronalmost 10 years agoMakes me want to hit up Wikipedia for a history lesson. I retained very little from the American public education system.
Vivid in its Pungentude.
Angelinealmost 10 years agoLove the perspective--of course that horse would not want the villain Richard III riding him. And I love that the poem becomes a prequel to what we know happens at the end of the play--that last line plays off it perfectly.
You do wonderful things with blank verse!
pelegrinoalmost 10 years agoHigh 5ed, GM, for your marvelous poetic expression and really refreshing angle of viewing this story. You have also included undeniable historical facts.
I liked very much the:
"a smell as rank
as slop from sties where pigs have shat and pissed.
This stink is called the War of Roses, Boy,"
On the other hand, I felt that it has somehow a "pro-Lancastrian" feeling to it, but forgive me if that is not so.
To me "My Kingdom for a horse" is only a questionable Shakespearian invention, as the Tudor kingdom that followed the battle of Bosworth was not a place for a horse either, and chivalry was even more dead than in Plantagenet years.
Ashesh9almost 10 years agoHorse's Caustic eye view !?!!?
High 5 .
