Ponyville & Other Poems

by AugieDog

33 - Point/Counterpoint (sonnets)

I've heard them all, but "Fairy Sherbet Moose"
Remains my favorite unofficial name.
Instead of vicious monsters on the loose,
It rings of fun, of cities not aflame.

But really change it now that I'm the King?
Severely tempting. Wash away the past
And start anew without our former sting,
Restructure all we do from first to last!

I'll change our lives—! Which isn't any change.
It's what our species's done since time began.
Consistency's the challenge to arrange,
To stand in places were we always ran.

We have to learn to freeze, to stop and stay
Before our brand-new sherbet melts away.

***

I've heard then all, but "Fairy Sherbet Moose"
Admits in stark relief our fall's great height.
A race whose name derived from our great ruse
Now sounds as though we are the ones to bite.

Sweet irony! What hunger once turned cruel,
Once sated, softens, melts, and hollows out.
Until a pony-addled rainbow fool
Holds court within my shattered hive's redoubt.

And I am left, alone, to lick my wounds,
To taste the bitter brine of my defeat
While, echoing, the mocking, sordid sounds:
A moose by other name would smell more sweet.

Let Thorax rule the ones who would embrace
Such base indignity. I'll save my face.

Author's Note:

For the story behind:

These sonnets, check this blog post. In brief, though, I wrote the first on the Saturday of 2017's Bronycon, and horizon wrote the second in response.

Comments

[Icy Shake]

Impressive that someone who isn't a changeling would so perfectly capture the mood of their queen. And her one loyalist (for however disappointingly short he remained so), when he would not yet have aired as such at the time...

[PresentPerfect]

That's about the last thing I'd have expected this to be about. XD

[AugieDog]

10336478

It came as a shock to me, too. I was typing the first sonnet on one of the typewriters there in Quills & Sofas when Horizon came by and asked what I was doing. I told him, and he asked if he could borrow the paper when I was done. I gave it to him, he rolled it into another of the typewriters, and clattered out the reply on the bottom half of the sheet. Not bad for an afternoon's work!

Mike