Updated June 30th, 2025
An abiding ash snares its feathered lord;
the first bears shelter, the second shadow.
Darkness thrashes in envy, a callous cord;
life seldom slaughters the serf of gallows.In sacred wellspring bearing a kingdom,
lowly ancients bargain poison and vice.
A madman need savor his wisdom;
to take lore for sight is a witless price.Wanderer impaled by most faithless knife
tarnished talons adrift the bleeding red,
from the icy fibers of self-suffered life
our king --- war-maker! all-hater! --- has fed.In burst fetters terror comes to bite,
and thus conclude the coward's futile plight.
Further updated to add some context: this is a shakespearean sonnet... they are a little tricky to write, and in opinion the kind of thing that needs to be edited over multiple sittings. Meter is also an important part of these poems, which requires a certain amount of syllables per line (usually 10), and every other syllable must be stressed.
That's called iambic pentameter, which I only loosely followed. Making these is a word puzzle!