Hey, everyone.
I can't think of anything to say, so let's get cracking.
Wheel of Genres, turn, turn, turn! Tell me the genre I will discern!
Today's topic is... Ballad! And that's both good news and bad news for me. On the one hand, it's good news because I've written ballads before, two of them in fact. One when I was Sophomore in HS, and a part two that when I was a Senior. But, it's bad news because ballads tend to be long and epic. It's also bad news because ballads can be written in a variety of ways. If I felt like I had the cojones, I would try for the 13 lined form with an ABABBCBC rhyme scheme, but because I want to keep this short so you all can enjoy a complete poem, I'm going to wuss out for the ABAB form which I wrote in when I wrote my original ballads. Now, I just need a topic. And I think I'm going to honor my HS days again. I probably will so again multiple times this week until some point next week because I'll still be fresh from the experience of my HS reunion happening this Saturday. So, I think I'll write a dramatized version of the events that led to Notre Dame's closing and how we fought to keep it open.
Thirty minutes on the clock: 30:00. And... go!
Back in the days when we were lads,
We were beholden to a school of merit;
A long, long time before we were dads
And thrown into a world disparate.
We attended the school of Notre Dame,
Wherein we each became a devoted son;
For Our Mother we carried no shame,
And in becoming brothers, we had fun.
But Maida, the Cardinal, was a villain,
And sought to tear us asunder;
Taking up our new mission,
We rallied 'gainst Maida like thunder.
Brothers who came before, came again,
And together we waged our war
To end Maida's greedy plan,
We let our spirits soar!
Our fight, with clash and clatter,
Made headlines 'cross the state;
Many came to watch the matter,
And see if we could seize our fate.
Late into the school year we fought,
But Maida was too great a curse;
Our voices and actions came to naught,
And in June, we had to disperse.
With great lament and grinding of teeth,
We were forced from Our Mother;
To this day, many still seethe,
And long for the days of our brothers.
Maida has passed and so have the days,
And we grieve for a time long gone;
But to this day, our pride will still blaze,
As sons of Notre Dame, we march on.
***
And stop the clock! I have a minute and a half left. Yes, that almost took me the entire time. Unfortunately, it's not as good as I would like it to be. For whatever reason, it's really difficult for me to reacquire the poet's voice, but just as I get going, I can feel it again. All my poems of late have great endings and terrible beginnings. I also experimented with line length, but for whatever reason, I'm more attuned to shorter lines rather than longer, and a part of my brain just seems hardwired for an AABBCCDD rhyme scheme rather than ABAB CDCD. Perhaps I should go back and take a look at my old poetry and see what my younger self new so well that my older self seems to have forgotten. I should probably also pick up Shakespeare again; he has a great voice and used words so creatively.
But anyway, that's it for today. If you want to use the wheel I made, you should be able to access it here. And if you have the time, please check out my books for sale on Amazon which you can find through my author page. The link is below. Also, I'm redoing my Patreon page to reflect my humbler actions and so forth. I'm going to re-work it so the only focus is on writing rather than on YouTube. But, that's a story for another time. See you tomorrow.
Keep writing, my friends.
More About Bryan C. Laesch:
Amazon: My Author Page, My Influencer Page
Facebook: Bryan C. Laesch, Bawdy Scholar
Patreon: Bryan C. Laesch
Twitter: BryanofallTrade
Youtube: Bryan C. Laesch, Bawdy Scholar
