Defenders of the Realm Act IV

(Read Act III here.)

The Welshmen sat in the cave aghast
at what bad luck had come to pass,
that they had slaughtered a whole tribe
of woodwoses in their home.

That one of their number escaped
was giving them all a headache,
and the thought of woodwose hatred
pressed forcefully on their minds,
a prospect they tried and failed
to forget and leave behind,
fruits of Aled's botched design.

They began the lengthy trek back
to the castle, open for attack
from the fierce dragon still at large
in the skies above the hills.

At last they reached the castle gates.
A small detail did indicate
the results of Aled's mistake,
namely smoke above the walls,
rising above the battlements
and billowing off the walls,
indicating fire galore.

It took them hours to douse the flames,
by which time Gethin was enraged
about leaving themselves open
to the wrath of dragon fire.

They gathered what servants remained
and they resolved to formulate
an effort to eliminate
the curse of the endless fire.
Gethin's grand plan did however
draw most of the servant's ire;
he had them all tied to pyres.

And so the waiting game began
with the only live bait to hand.
Gethin guessed the wyrm favourite
living prey which it could scorch.

Just as the afternoon ended,
chaos suddenly descended
as the servants, undefended
saw wild men upon the walls.
Woodwoses scaled the battlements
and descended down the walls,
to maim and slaughter them all.

The Welshmen returned from dinner
to find the charred courtyard littered
with bloody remnants of servants,
their assailants long since gone.

Gethin and Hywel cursed their luck,
then Fergal shot up, thunderstruck,
and said their luck was not yet up
as they still had some bait left,
in the form of dear old Burbage
sitting in the hall at rest,
his dinner yet to digest.

Burbage pleaded and protested,
but his case was uncontested
and they strung him up on the pyre
before sitting down to wait.

As sundown gave way to nightfall,
with a castle still to fight for,
Aled spotted it well before
it plummeted from the sky,
plummeted out of the blackness
of the dimly starlit sky
with the most bloodcurdling cry.

Burbage on his pyre stood no chance,
with no sword to hand or a lance.
The dragon snatched him off the pyre
like a bird skimming a lake.

And the friends charged out of hiding,
still at severe risk of dying,
with their focus firm on fighting,
fighting the ferocious drake,
aiming to cast it from the sky.
With the castle still at stake,
they charged headlong at the drake.

Nothing went according to plan,
but they stuck to the task at hand,
as they incurred many wounds
thanks to their fire-breathing foe.

Hywel was sideswiped by its tail,
flung by the enormous scaled flail,
into the gatehouse did he sail
with a crash of shattered stone.
Fergal was caught in the beast's flame,
his arms were charred to the bone.
Quite a mess the friends had sown.

As Gethin attacked with his bow
he tripped and fell into the moat,
leaving Aled the last defence
against the winged beast of flames.

He sprinted up to the ramparts,
protected by tattered armour
and although not the best archer,
grabbed Gethin's quiver and bow.
He ran up the nearest turret
and took aim with Gethin's bow,
aimed right down the dragon's throat.

The dragon flew at him headlong,
but his grip on the bow was strong.
Aled loosed the arrow just as
the beast swooped down upon him.

He fired two seconds too late,
be it by sheer fool's luck or fate,
the arrow became a checkmate
when it struck the dragon's throat,
with Aled loosing his bow hand
to the dying dragon's throat.
Then it fell into the moat.

And so it was a victory,
the tone was contradictory,
the slayers sat, mutilated
in the wreckage of the yard.

A messenger arrived later,
and his news was none the greater,
the prince who had been a traitor
had slayed King Richard the Third.
His Welsh soldiers with their polearms
had slayed King Richard the Third,
leaving the reward deferred.

Defenders of the Realm Act III

(Read Act II here.)

Come dawn and a threadbare breakfast,
the men set out to find the menace
and fix the problem at its source
before it could take flight again.

Having never trekked overland,
they were a lost and tired band,
with no navigators to hand
they reached the nearest village,
untouched by the dragon's fury,
free from its wanton pillage,
overrun with rat spillage.

At lunch Aled had a tipoff,
info he couldn't just write off,
about a cave in the green hills
where the wyrm had made his lair.

Telling the others of this news
and with not a moment to lose,
and no time to enjoy the views
they headed for the green hills,
following a sprightly stream
to the cave in the green hills
where they hoped to make their kill.

They reached the cave upon the hour,
its dark mouth ominous and dour,
but did not enter for terror
of the beast living within.

So they set about conspiring,
their strategic now firing,
and just as the friends were tiring
a thought entered Aled's head
which turned into a careful plan
certain to get them ahead,
but it filled Aled with dread.

They gathered firewood from the woods,
their servants helping where they could,
and laid it at the cave entrance
from one end to the other.

The wyrm must have been in slumber,
naive to the inbound lumber,
then its sleep was torn asunder
when Fergal torched the kindling,
the flames towering in a row,
air full of cinders sizzling,
choking all who dwelt within.

When the fires died and the smoke cleared
the four friends rose and drew near
to the mouth of the cave to see
the dragon's lifeless corpse.

Yet much to their amazement,
instead of the dragon's encasement
for them to win appraisement
were corpses on the floor,
corpses covered in long brown fur
strewn all about the cave floor,
a sight the friends all abhorred.

Aled had heard of these before,
the memory came to the fore.
They were woodwoses or wild men
from church engravings of yore.

While struggling to recognise
his accidental genocide,
Aled saw with his smoke-strained eyes
some footprints headed outside,
leading to the edge of the trees
where the lucky one could hide
and find others of his kind.

(Continued in Act IV here.)

Defenders of the Realm Act II

(Read Act I here.)

They arrived at the castle late,
a fortress frail and in dire straits
with foundations which were flaking
from attacks by the vile wyrm.

They met a man named Burbage,
who looked to Aled a durbage,
a man with no room for verbiage
who tended his mottled perm,
a butler minding the castle
tending to his half-arsed perm,
a man proud a dully firm.

The four friends set about their work,
snubbing Burbage's pompous smirk,
thinking how best to kill a beast
they had never seen before.

Gethin put archers on the walls,
Hywel guessed the dragon would fall
to some unjustly small axes
he bought from the smith next door.
Fergal brought in some trebuchets
to line the castle walls.
Aled just rolled his eyeballs.

They decided to get practice,
as they all did somewhat lack it
in any way of weaponry
or the forms of martial skill.

Gethin's archery went sideways,
he aimed as how one stargazes,
he hit two men in their faces
while his friends joined for the thrill,
joined for the thrill of shooting arrows
lined with finely trimmed quills,
and aimed at Burbage's frill.

Night fell over the Pennine hold,
and very soon the friends were told
that the dragon had been sighted
flying to the castle walls.

Gethin's archers were set aflame,
the dragon-fire put stone to shame,
and Fergal commenced his mad game
of flinging rocks at its hide,
rocks which hit everything
bar the dragon's armoured hide,
debris flying on all sides.

Then Hywel saw an opening,
charged through the wreckage smouldering
to clout the dragon with his axe
when it tried to eat him raw.

With a screech to deafen whistles,
like a cat caught in the thistles,
the beast took off like a missile
soaring up into the night,
leaving Hywel to boast and brag
for what was left of the night,
claiming he was proven right.

(Continued in Act III here.)

Defenders of the Realm Act I

Aled, Hywel, Fergal, Gethin,
three Welsh, one Irishman settling
in the village he arrived in,
farming in the fields of Wales.

Yet when a prince who claimed the throne
arrived on shores not far from home,
the four friends feared raiders would roam
with the likely threat of war,
the ever-present shadow which
often knocks upon men's doors,
threats which grew across the moors.

They hoped to make a run for it,
and have nothing to do with it.
King Richard would grant no permit
but would not drag them to war.

But just as they made their treaty,
messengers arrived discreetly
and set their stall to entreaty
any bold men to step forth,
as the King needed the aid of
Welshmen if they would step forth
to help with problems up north.

The four friends took their chance quickly,
and travelled across roads strictly
to a time-frame that would see them
meet his grace in the grand hall.

And so King Richard did meet them,
and quite quick to beseech them,
he needed all and each of them
to help a castle in thrall,
in thrall to a pesky dragon
which was tearing down the walls,
a beast with a lot of gall.

The King left them with instructions,
to which they had some compunctions,
that they must slay the great dragon
while he was fighting on the field.

If it was dead before victory,
the King promised no trickery,
he would reward them handsomely
once he returned home from the field,
returned with the head of Henry,
after winning on the field,
returned home with nought to yield.

(Continued in Act II here.)

Happy National Poetry Day + Mametz Wood Update

Once again it's National Poetry Day, and safe to say the poetry world is still as busy as ever. It's been a bit busier than usual on this blog as well, with two new poems in the last couple of weeks and a few more to come. The next installment of Frynwys Features is on it's way, as Frynwys has been a bit livelier of late, and I have a few other projects on the go as well. One project that I'm sorry to say has experienced a fair few delays has been my Mametz Wood project, but as something special for National Poetry Day, I thought I'd share with you some of the work in progress. The following is a draft of a poem which sets out the basis of the full poem I'm attempting to write. Hope you enjoy, and have some good poetry-related celebrations (if that stuff goes on and the like). See you again soon!

Mametz Wood First Draft

Ahead of the trenches
sits the wood itself.
A fortress of trees
on a small hill.
Coils of barbed wire
spiralling outwards,
carving up the mud.
Nest of machine guns
and snipers perched
atop the fire-steps
as sharp-sighted
as birds of prey,
hidden by the trees.

Gods of the Sundarbans

There is a place where three rivers
pour into the Bay of Bengal.
Merging in a vast forest,
they wind their way through
the soaking delta of the Sundarbans.

Mangroves line the creeks
with their rib-like roots.
By day otters swim in the waters,
deer quench their thirst while
macaques watch from the trees.

Night falls, turning the streams
into mirrors of moonlight.
They catch the reflection of a solitary tiger.
It lurks in its forest refuge,
guarded by the coast.

Men sometimes see the tiger at night
as they fish the mangroves
or gather kindling from the forest.
It can swim through creeks and rivers
to kill them on their boats.

The boats rest at the beaches tonight.
No one intrudes on the forest
lest the tiger should appear.
It spies the boats on the shore
and retreats into the shadows.