David Welch | + Follow Poet |
Epic | + Fav Poem | Comment | Email | Print |

Why Your Cities Burn, Part I

I’ve seen many look to the sky
and to the gods earnestly plead,
what sins have the committed that
require so many to bleed?
Why does Lord Diyal ride the lands,
do things that make your stomach churn,
his soldiers loot and pillage all…
Why do they make your cities burn?

I can tell you that it begins
with a young man named Gobayth,
a nomad up on the moorlands
who was living a decent life.
His parents owned several large herds,
they slowly moved across the grass,
grazing them in an area
as long as the forage might last.
He had six brothers and sisters,
a scent-hound and a piebald horse,
he’d hunt rabbits and deer with hem,
also keen on hawking, of course.
When not moving the kine around
this youth had the run of the plains,
he’d shoot arrows at full gallop,
still hit straw targets all the same.
His family had the biggest tents,
plenty of fine furs to keep warm,
and never did Gobayth think
that this free life wasn’t the norm.

But when he’d seen sixteen summers,
when riding by the Yellow Hills,
he came over a rise and saw
that several young steers had been killed.
That men had done so was quite clear,
several spearpoints were left behind,
he rode on, looking for a trail,
but instead of one he did find
several men clad in steel-ring shirts,
one saw him and hurled his long spear,
it skewered Gobayth’s fine horse,
a man said, “Look what we have here!”
They leapt on him and he struggled,
thrashing at them every which way,
their leader said, “Don’t be too rough,
the mines pay more for healthy slaves.”
And though he landed several blows,
Gobayth did not stand a chance,
he was outnumbered eight-to-one,
and soon enough they’d bound his hands,
tossed him across a horse’s back,
quickly rode away from the moors,
Gobayth watched them fade from view,
replaced by things not seen before.
Replaced by forests, farms, and hills,
by castles and towers of stone,
by people of the Black Flint king,
who looked quite different from his own.

They did not live in bull-hide tents,
most of their huts were made of trees,
and few of them kept animals,
they tended stalks of grass to eat.
Few of them had that much at all,
unless they were the ones in charge,
they seemed to revel in the fact
they had power and could live large.
Certainly they did like their whips,
and lashed him often in the back,
until his shirt hung in long shreds,
blood steaming down his skin in tracks...

CONTINUES IN PART II.

Please Login to post a comment