//------------------------------//
// 9 - Rhapsody (hendecasyllables) 
// Story: Ponyville & Other Poems 
// by AugieDog 
//------------------------------//

I sing now of Ponyville!  Praise to its name!
My spot of redemption, the spot where the blame
Of centuries' arrogance washed from my sides
As surely as seas sweeping out with the tides!
Illumined by friendship, that glow from within,
The town and its ponies denuded my sin
And welcomed me back when I'd long gone astray,
Uncertain and lost to the light of the day!

A stone had a better existence than I,
Ensconced in my exile, for stones cannot cry
And rage with all impotence, shrieking, insane.
Resounding excuses and threats through my brain,
I stormed as both maelstrom and ship, tempest-tossed,
Despair digging deep for the world I had lost:
The trust of my people, my ponies, and you,
Celestia, sister, as pure as the dew.

Obscenities—echoing, foul, and disturbed—
Arose there like flowers as seldom I curbed
My temper to cultivate anything but
The falsehoods that filled me and clenched my mind shut.
I called you the villain, but not you alone:
All ponies were monsters in blood and in bone.
Ignoring and slighting me, they were the things
That needed correction, that needed my stings.

I had no sensation of time trickling past.
Absorbed in my sorrows, I played the outcast,
Unwanted, unloved, and all misunderstood:
My actions in my mind were nothing but good.
Delusional, yes, but what's worse, unashamed:
Acknowledging fault in all others, I blamed
My deeds on their actions, their flaws, their ennui
Without any thought that it might just be me.

Creatively bankrupt, I couldn't admit
How lost I'd become in self-doubt, too unfit
To exercise truly the duties my post
Demanded.  Instead, I grew angry, engrossed
In trivial matters of status and rank—
And "rank" in this case means the same thing as "stank"!
My foolishness that of a child—nay, a brat!—
I sought all outside me for things to combat.

Until on that night, hollowed out and unwell,
I shattered and cracked like some poorly-cast bell.
A lunatic, ignorant, blinded, enraged,
Obsessed with escaping, I kept myself caged,
Awaiting my chance to return all afire
With madness, destruction my only desire.
The world had so wronged me, I knew in my heart,
Equestria had to be taken apart.

Ideas absorbed from some dusty romance,
I crashed into Ponyville, took up my stance,
Let peal my maniacal laughter and shout—
And doomed my pretensions.  Of that, there's no doubt.
The shell that entombed me, the lies I embraced,
They crumbled against the true power I faced.
Unbalanced, I needed a push—nothing more—
To shatter me, gasping and sprawled on the floor.

In seeking perfection, I lost all I had.
Accepting their flaws, these six friends beat me bad.
Defeat was a victory—mine, yours and theirs:
I needed a kicking, and these were the mares.
Undaunted, resilient, enchanting, and strong,
They showed me quite clearly how far I'd gone wrong.
The lesson they taught there to welcome me home
Will flourish within me wherever I roam!