This Renga developed over many week as the poets at The Writers’ Block battled it out to write the verses which would be selected for this collaborative poem.
After our first renga delved into the science fiction genre it should have been little surprise that the one we are presenting here proceeded down a fantasy path.
So pull your chair up close by the fire and ready yourself for an adventure.
The One Within
Rising from the mist
triumphant –
the magic mountain.
Its icy cap, crowning slopes,
caves of gold and dark creatures.
Scales sliding
across rocky slopes –
a beast awaits its prey.
In jealous darkness,
mounds of copper, gold and bones.
From the haunts of man
awaits a cold saviour,
bearing a birthmark of ash.
The beast fears the prophecy:
'A man unburnt by the flames.'
The son of steel and fire,
brandishing his blade
fearlessly on the warpath.
At mountain's edge he takes a breath,
then descends through sulfurous caves.
The beast detects
the smell of man and
prepares his breath of flames.
With a heave, the dragon spits his might.
The warrior braces as fire tickles, unharming.
For fire is light.
Where the tunnel begins,
only fear burns.
The beast retreats among shiny things.
In warrior’s eyes – cold certainty.
The elders believed,
an empty husk would douse the fire.
Once cinder, now coal.
The true magic lies in the sacred blade.
It becomes black ice as he nears the beast.
There is no beast but the one within
that vanishes only when we are free.
So those chained to the past must let go.
Icy blade bites, dragon fangs taste man flesh,
locked in endless embrace within the mountain's heart.
Contributors:
Image – pixabay – CC0 – FunPhotos
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