Ponyville & Other Poems

by AugieDog

10 - Re: Rhapsody (glosa)

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.

Consider a parchment from here to the moon,
One spreading insistently over the sky.
If somehow I spent ev'ry midafternoon
Inscribing that surface with letter and rune,
A thousand more years would quite swiftly go by
Before I could list even part of the prayers,
The hymns of thanksgiving I've wanted to cry
To those little ponies who rose to defy
The laws I established, untangling my snares!
Defeat was a victory—mine, yours and theirs!

Much greater than anything I'd ever dreamed
Because, my dear Luna, my dreams long before
I'd strangled and stomped since I truly had deemed
Myself as unworthy. My whole future seemed
An ocean of dust, dry and dead, nothing more.
My sunlight grew harsher, less shimmers than glares:
Instead of sweet friendship and warmth at its core,
Each day was a duty, a burden, a chore.
Unconsciously starting to darken the airs,
I needed a kicking, and these were the mares.

How fitting a filly named Twilight would first
Direct a sweet glimmer toward eyes overstrained
By darkness at noontime. I thought myself cursed,
The centuries filling me, ready to burst.
Beholding her marvelous power, I deigned
To lean her direction, and oh, how her song
Enveloped my weakness! Refreshing, she rained
Her love and affection until I regained
My balance. She skewered my heart on her prong,
Undaunted, resilient, enchanting, and strong.

The others as well who were drawn to her side
Embodied the virtues I'd started to lack.
Quixotic, I thought them, and wished to deride
Their efforts to thwart me and my stupid pride—
Except for a whisper that wanted you back.
While most of me clattered and rang like a gong,
My poor, faded hope waged its quiet attack
And helped them fix ev'rything I'd tried to crack.
Forgive me, my sister. I'd wandered so long:
They showed me quite clearly how far I'd gone wrong.

Author's Note:

The glosa is a poetic form hardly ever found in English--I mean, it doesn't even have a Wikipedia page for me to link to! You write one by taking four lines from another poem, then using this elaborate rhyming structure to write four stanzas each of which ends with one of the quoted lines. It seemed to me to be exactly the sort of poem Celestia would enjoy.

Comments

[Soge]

That is a quite interesting poetic structure – I don't think I have seen it before. Any specific reason for choosing it as the answer to the previous poem?

[AugieDog]

3700435

The glosa:

Is apparently such a little used form in English that the editor of the poetry handbook and dictionary I use, a guy named Clement Wood, had to write one himself so he could include an example. The whole idea behind it is to quote four lines from some other poem and then use this elaborate rhyming structure to build another poem around those four lines. It just seemed perfect for Celestia: take the wildness of Luna's rhapsody and work it into something that was both tamer and just as wacky at the same time...

Mike

[paintom_phan]

This one. They've all been good so far, but this one I like. I don't quite know why. Could be because I could actually hit the rhythm correctly without sounding like a first grader trying to recite Shakespeare.

[AugieDog]

3761960

When I first started this project:

I knew two things. First, that Twilight's poem had to be a Shakespearean sonnet. And second, that Celestia's had to be a glosa based on whatever sort of poem Luna ended up doing.

I'm glad you're enjoying them!

Mike

[Lurks-no-More]

Hmm, now this was an interesting take of what Celestia was like before her sister's return - jaded, worn out, having hoped so long even hope grew stale, going through the motions with Twilight and her friends, too weary to believe in them or the possibility of victory even as she worked towards it... Unusual, and possibly my imposition on your poem, but intriguing!

[AugieDog]

3810827

A thousand years can be a long, long time.

Mike

[horizon]

Huh. Learn something new every day.

I like this form. I may have to write some. And since it's a response form …

[AugieDog]

4223412

The form is:

Hardly used in English. The Canadian poet P.K. Page apparently wrote a whole book of them called Hologram twenty years ago, but that seems to be about it. The meter of each individual glosa is determined by the meter of the quoted part at the top, and the rhyme scheme's partially determined by the quoted part, too. It's pretty fun, putting one together.

Mike

[SongCoyote]

4225126
By the blood on Luna's horn, this one really hit me hard.

I'll admit, I didn't actually think much of Luna's poem. While I heard her voice in it - it wasn't subtle, but then neither is she, for the most part - the style didn't work well when I compared its shape and feel to the Luna that lives in my head.

But this... oh, this is perfect. Celestia's sorrow and vulnerability, her hopes and dreams, laid out far more clearly than we will likely ever see in the series... but do with some regularity when she is written about with love and respect on this site.

As you have done here, and brought tears to my eyes and inspiration to my heart. I will be using this form to respond to some of my own works, and even others - perhaps even yours.

Light and laughter,
SongCoyote

[AugieDog]

5782184

Thanks!

I wrote the Luna poem in an attempt to capture the character we meet in the episode "Luna Eclipsed." Essentially, I wanted a poem that one could recite at the top of one's Royal Canterlot Voice because I knew that Celestia's poem was going to be the exact opposite.

For my own personal take on Luna, I'll direct you over to my story "In Their Highnesses' Clandestine Corps" where she is "M" to Prince Blueblood's James Bond, or all the way back to Half the Day is Night, the novel I wrote during Season One.

Mike