Ponyville & Other Poems

by AugieDog

36 - On Reformation (glosa)

The whole of my audience, I refrain
From noticing, stalwart and dignified.
Control is the key, and I've learned to hide
The sweat as it slickens and thinks me scared.

Apologies flow from my mouth like thorns
That want to be roses: so near but far.
Uprooting the voice in my brain that scorns
Insipid forgiveness will take the horns,
The hooves and the wings that I've yet to scar.
The friendships I'm offered appear insane:
I wake from my slumber with mouth ajar
To gape at the light of the morning star.
Although my despicable parts disdain
The whole of my audience, I refrain.

Again and again, how I bite my tongue,
A comment unsaid, a remark declawed,
Exquisite disharmony left unsung.
I'm steeped in its poison, have climbed each rung,
Advanced to the point where I find it odd
To know any sort of a warmth inside.
It freezes me, feeling myself a fraud,
Invading a place I should not have trod.
And yet I endeavor to keep my pride
From noticing, stalwart and dignified.

The masks I've displayed all my life require
Maintaining a distance, aloof, apart.
I squat in the shadows and tend the fire:
Its sparks and its smoke and its heat inspire
Devotion in ponies who lack the heart
To think for themselves and have never tried.
Removed, an observer, I spin and dart,
Implanting the notion they shouldn't start.
It's simple. The walls in my mind divide.
Control is the key, and I've learned to hide.

Until my constructions got blown to bits,
Revealing me openly, masks destroyed.
I tumble in emptiness, twitching fits,
Myself on display without glam or glitz.
This friendship entangles; I can't avoid
Its tendrils. It's snagging me unprepared—
Especially seeing I've quite enjoyed
Releasing the grip that I once employed
And trusting the ponies with whom I've shared
The sweat as it slickens and thinks me scared.

Author's Note:

Another glosa:

And still, Wikipedia has no article about the form for me to link to! Just because it's more common in Spanish and Portuguese than in English...

Essentially, you take four lines from another poem, quote them at the top, then spin out this elaborate rhyming structure into four stanzas that each end with one of the quoted lines. Because Starlight's poem had to be a glosa based on Trixie's ballade, didn't it?

Comments

[Lurks-no-More]

Your mastery of forms of poetry is impressive!

This, I think, captures a lot of Starlight's self: the wariness, the frustrations, the eagerness to make friends and be good, and the unsureness of how to do that again.

[FanOfMostEverything]

I honestly wasn't sure if this was for Starlight, Trixie, or even Discord for quite some time. Still, exquisite work, especially in the recontextualized last lines.

[AugieDog]

8666477
8666893

Thanks, folks!

I did a set of semi-linked sonnets from some of the reformed and non-reformed villains. Maybe I should have all the reformed villains write glosas commenting on each other's glosas. Or have them knock together an official "crown of sonnets." Or another limerick cycle. Can't go wrong with a limerick cycle!

Mike

[PresentPerfect]

9162419
She's still a jerk. :V

[AugieDog]

9162705

Then we need:

A new form called a jerkanelle. Lightning Dust can write one, too!

Mike

[PresentPerfect]

Once again, a fascinating poetic form. :O