Perils of Harmattan

I
The silent night, it ’s dark quiet naught,
Prolongs my pain, my wary thought
From the painful travails of yesterday,
To what maketh your heart, so bitter today.

II
Four seasons of lore ‘n suffering,
Icy mountains to melted springs,
Thou in arms I did begin to cherish
What did I do…? You let the dream perish

III
Forget not whence it first began,
From the perils of harmattan,
Cimmerian love for Narisah, my love
Tear’s baneful tryst, with shiny lambent glove

IV
Did i not buy those lips a smile?
Hath my fears made it oh so vile?
Is it aureate stone that you seek, my love?
Shame! …. I have none sunk, on a long lost cove.

V
Did I not sing with a mute fife?
Pledged thee my risible life,
Pardon my grief of your oh so grieved soul,
My heart bleeds watching the fag end of scroll.

VI
Did I not bleed enough for thee?
Does it not have enough glee?
If i am unable to give you more,
Sad…! These arid veins have a drop no more.

VII
Did i not care you with warm sway?
Was it a debt I failed to pay?
Call me a naive oaf, so little i know.
Guide me through these last drops of melting snow

VIII
Darkness glooms the sorrowful skies,
Bitter I stand with barren eyes,
Ravaged by hoards of my savvy mares nest
So Moored to ground entwined by a broken swær breast.

IX
Obdurate stone, soaked, wet, going soft
Warm it feels, maimed heart gushing oft
Mute sway of Osiris, my pard behold,
Feel no sand under my feet, stars unfold

X
Choose not I, this vain primrose path,
Curse of Hades, draped as polymath
Judge nay by soul of a captious eye
Thy wit be juree, love vouch, I don’t lie

XI
I implore my love; spat the secret of this Augean sorcery,
Thine dagger to lancinate me, from the blinds of an elder tree,
Fight was I not for you and me…though it was your cherished kin,
Why hath you speak not of hale kinship, beneath your soft mellow skin?

XII
Oh wish thou Hath spoken, my love, a rejoiced heart would smile in his hands,
But bleed on thy blade; I die a thousand times, …in this foreign land.
Grieve not my love… my last wish, in the sandy mists of Harmattan
I die in peace and still in love, at a place where it all began

I wanted to experiment writing poetry in the more classical fashion, this is my first attempt at it. I started laying down a few pre-conditions to the poem.

1. It should have 12 quatrains, and each verse of the quatrain should be a grammatically complete ( No fragments.)
2. Should follow a specific Rhyme an AAXX or the more classical AXAX, I decided on an AAXX
3. A specific syllable rhythm. And for no apparent reason I decided a 8,8,10,10 structure. The first two lines should not have more than 8 syllables and the last two should have 10
4. Just to add complexity I decided the last two quatrains should have 16 syllables each.
5. Most Importantly I wanted to tell a story that I had in mind and the story should be complete in the 12 quatrains. (It is difficult to make people read a story longer than that on a blog)
6. Finally there should be a identifiable artistic symmetry in the text.

(I cheated on the 7th..i wanted to write in iambic pentameter but i was not able to move more than the first quatrain so I removed that precondition. I guess some concessions for a good story to move on)

This is what I have after two weeks of working on it “The Perils of Harmattan”. Hope you will like, and pls do comment it will make the effort all the more worthwhile.

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