The Porcelain Cabbage

After reading my previous post, titled "Fly," one of my readers who goes by the initials TA, which I am guessing stands for "Totally Anonymous," suggested I should write poems. The fact is, I've written a few poems in my day. In fact, one of them that I wrote many years ago—many decades ago—is one of my favorites, and over the years a number of people have read it and asked me for a copy of the poem. Although the poem is a little bit reminiscent of Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings," I wrote my poem several years before I read "The Hobbit" and the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and decades before the films were made.

Some background: I had nothing to do one day, so I pulled out a notepad and pen and I started writing. The poem that came out is titled "The Porcelain Cabbage." (I was in a whimsical mood.) The poem is written in iambic quadrameter, except for the first line which I never could fit into the same rhythm as the other lines. Iambic quadrameter has four beats per line, with each beat having an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. So: duh DUH  duh DUH  duh DUH  duh DUH. Like a heartbeat.

When I began writing this poem, I had no idea where it would go nor how it would end. It just flowed out of me like a feeling put into words. I've never "published" it to the world, so it feels a little bit odd putting this old poem on the Internet. Here it is, for what it's worth; I hope my readers enjoy it. And credit to TA for the nudge that prompted me to dust off this old poem and put it on my blog.

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The Porcelain Cabbage
            a poem by VirtualWayne

Long before the eyes of man
Did rest upon this weary land
There was within the forest dim
A porcelain cabbage very grim
A thing that was so terrible
Whose sight was so unbearable
That none before it dared to stand
And all who saw it turned and ran.

It was the porcelain cabbage great
That through the land did ravage late
A cabbage so carnivorous
Without the slightest fear of us
That those who lived were those who fled
And those who stayed were quickly dead
Across the land both far and near
The cabbage spread its hate and fear.

But of these matters all I knew
Was tidings from survivors few
Who had escaped the porcelain wrath
And deadly peril of its path
In tens they came, then hundreds and
Before the end the thousands ran
To Skydown where the Smorg and me
Did live and rule in harmony.

Now Skydown was a haven fair
And evil had not ventured there
Since Smorg and I had brought our rule
To this fair land, this sparkling jewel
And all these things the cabbage knew
But every day its power grew
Until one day it conquered all
But Skydown, which had yet to fall.

It dawned a dark and gloomy morn
That day the evil news was borne
To Skydown that the porcelain wrath
Had set its gaze upon our path
And even then was drawing near
To Skydown, and would soon be here
But hope did not fail Smorg and me
That our fair realm would still be free

A roof of clouds had covered all
When Smorg and I strode from our hall
The day had grown dark as the night
With eerie lightning flashing bright
And thunder shook the very ground
And acrid smoke hung all around
And then we knew that if we could
Not stop this thing, then no one would.

Out of the dark the monster loomed
And if we fell then all was doomed
We stood before the might and hate
And felt the rage that none could take
Then Smorg and I began to fight
And all that day and through the night
The battle raged on up and down
The length and breadth of fair Skydown.

On us alone its might was bent
Until on us its wrath was spent
And then on Skydown fair the sun
Dawned bright, and Smorg and I had won.
The world does not remember now
That battle or that land so fair
Nor does it know just what it cost
To save the things we almost lost.

The world was safe until some morn
Another evil shape would form
And threaten some new Skydown fair
But Smorg and I will not be there
For this will be the time of man
And he will live throughout this land
And when he meets that evil shape
I wonder what will be his fate.   

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A final note is, I think, worth mentioning. When I wrote the poem, I debated whether to reverse the meaning of the final two lines. So instead of

And when he meets that evil shape
I wonder what will be his fate.

I could have written

And when he meets that evil fate
I wonder what will be its shape.

That gives a very different meaning to those two lines. I decided to use the first option, which questions whether Man will survive that final encounter with Evil. Had I used the second option, the poem would have questioned what kind of Evil will Man encounter in those last days.