In my spare time at the office, I’ve taken to writing some short poetry, largely in the form of limericks (haikus mostly infuriate me, and limericks feel like a way of fulfilling my Irish heritage). I had the idea after hearing an interview from Stephen Fry talking about his book The Ode Less Travelled. I have yet to read the book, but in the interview Fry talked about how presenting words in poetic fashion is aa artful as painting, music and so on. Of course, I already thought of literature as art, but poetry had never really interested me, I hadn’t thought about it as word structure being used as a medium the art was written in, rather I had always been taught the art was in the meaning behind the poetry. That is also true, but you can find art in simply assembling words in an aesthetically pleasing way.

After thinking about this and trying my hand at a few standalone poems, I’ve decided to write a diegetic poem from the Terraverse, my fictional cave world. The Lyrics of Cyril are the history of the Core War and the founding of the Dominion of the Terraverse as it is officially told within the Dominion and it’s realms. It is slightly bias, and the facts may even be fake (news haha) as revealed in the eventual main works of the Terraverse (if I ever get around to writing them). The Lyrics are a series of limericks, as my attempting to move onto sonnets would have been tear-inducing and prevented my writing at all.

The Lyrics of Cyril

A Fair and Just Tale of the Core War

Hollowed sphere comprised our world.
All agape as war unfurled.
Vast Vanquisher,
Mighty Jovia,
Whose Dominion is now Pearled

Ancient Assyp, empire entombed,
Whose rule over the Core was doomed.
Baceton the beauty,
And Strongest Tharti.
Millenary burghs seaside foamed.

Across the core, beyond the seas,
Were the lands within Cyril’s expertise:

Ifrit afar, estates aplenty
The void tunnel continente.
Dynastic ruling clans,
filling gold in their hands.
Never conquered, our land’s great ally.

Fair Normosa, pleased and piratical,
So called trade, pretend fanatical.
A little nation
with low population.
Oceanic earls rule pragmatical.

But prized above all the lands,
the Core lords sought for their hands
the shining rock, bright like a moon
Hygebrea the centre, made lords swoon.
Heart of the world, rule demands.

Muscular Jovia who no one bothers,
And brilliant Hygebrea were brothers.
Founded by the sons of Ov,
Ov’s son Jov, and Jov’s son Yov.
But Ov and Jov were short of others.

Now Yov’s brother Lov was king,
And the people suffered under his ring.
Yov’s men left for the Rock,
Where men of thought did flock
And so was born Hygebrea upon a wing.

This was century times fives
Before the war had taken lives.
A dreadful conflict
That we now depict
That Core War from which history derives…

(Cont’d)