((First off, let me clarify something. I am so absolutely obsessed with the idea of this city on the edge of forever, that I've written a poem, a short story, and am planing on writing a full length story/book/novel about it.
This is the poem version. And I need help with it because it's not complete, but I'm stuck. So... Yeah))
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There is a city on the edge of forever.
I saw it once, in a dream.
A place exists in the space between two seconds.
An impossible realm of infinity
Trapped by the bounds of the finite.
Where mountains hang upside down
And oceans bleed into the sky.
Here, there is a city built entirely of amber.
This kingdom of a thousand impossibilities
Where time and space have no reason or belonging
And the words that dictate life are left undefined.
This is the place where, each night, dreams are created.
This is the home of myths and the haven of memories.
This is the birthplace of light.
This crystalline city, tucked away in a cavern,
Us so high the unseen side of clouds appears as the ground.
Dragons burst forth from the shrouded abyss
As sea serpents rising from the deep.
Wings of fifty-thousand shades of blue
With frills and elaborate details and designs
Ornated with reds and golds and purples and silvers,
Cut through the mist and clouds
Followed by head, neck, body, tail,
Legendary creatures of magnificent powers exploding from the open air
Breaking the surface tension of the sky-borne ocean.
Clouds tug up behind them, clinging to these height-bound creatures
Before sheer force and winged serpents pull free from their bounds.
And clouds still molded upwards
Like Splashes of air, slow motion for settling back to stillness.
Ozone drips from their scales.
Free spirit entities of the amber city.
There are birds here of a thousand colors.
Twice the size of Man,
Whose beaks are dipped in gold and crested in gemstones
And eyes so sharp that nothing remains unseen.
Their feathers are weaved from silk
Their talons carved from obsidian,
They rush into the wind with the grace of angels,
Tails flowing like ribbon
Leaving a dust of diamonds to float down behind them where they fly.
The trees have leaves carved from emeralds.
Trees with trunks the size of houses
Who sand so tall
They tickle the sky when the wind blows.
Trees that sprung up long before you and I
Sprouting from seeds whose being swelled
Quenched with the waters of the River Lithe.
Planted where the ground was cracked and dry and smoking
From fires that rages the land in angry hunger.
The flames that licked their leaves and bark could not destroy them.
They breathed life into a land of desolation.
Their roots hold this place together.
Do you know at all what you want to do with it from here? So far it's basically the introduction to your short story, but in poem form, so my mind is thinking about that story rather than the poem.
ReplyDeleteWatch for too technical words, like a number of us have been saying to each other.
This may just be me and my having-taken-AP-Chem-ness, but Ozone dripping doesn't work for me
Lithe is an adjective. The River is called Lethe.
If I'm being honest, I'm not even sure if I want to continue with this, or if I should just drop it and focus on the short story
ReplyDeleteI think that if the poem and the short story are going to be the same thing, you should only have one. If you come up with different things for the city on the edge of forever to be, then you could write different things about it/them.
Deleteso at the beginning of the last stanza stand instead of "sand" and if you mean the river where the dead drink to forget its lethe not lithe. Okay now that i am done being technical....
ReplyDeleteI really like this i think it would be a cool prologue or introduction to your novel. you had me until the bird stanza. my mind never really went from Dragons to birds so connect that more. Do the dragons perhaps eat the birds?
Also I like where you are going from sky to dragons to birds to trees now go to what lives in the trees and on the ground and maybe consider connecting the other two elements (fire and water) and their inhabitants because then you would have the four elements and that would be cool.
so yeah...