Warrior Poets – poem by student J.J. Goodman

When you fight with a pen or fingers on Keys tapping or clutching scribbling
Your defence of hope or some other inalienable value think of a warrior
Decked in lusting blue tartanned and defiant tattooed in dreams of
Liberty angering Souls forgotten entombed.
Then this sword in my hand Seems less potent righteous or even
Determined, it’s lifeless Lead asking do I care enough to fight or just
Write and escape mystified courageous deeds designed dreamt beautifully imagined.
Is this a reason derived urging a cowardly telling of a
Story braved acts abandoned these warrior poets, sit.
With conjuring Images of gods and demons silhouetted in the sun,
Inspired light calling all men and shining on necessary heroics in blood.
Manned arching steel drops into inferno oppressed and cleft with love tarnished.
The eclipse of these oh’s burned, holes of chasmic sorrow
Gleam like bulleted light seeping, weeping onto the floor.
-The battle turns tears. Uncaused, unknown, unkissed slain echoed
In words resounding hearts thrown back from those holes with anger.
Can you defeat a man stood on the edge of the world
In defiance of tyranny who’s lost in golden valoured altruistic tides
Turning fate’s great gross unshifting flow, can we fight like this?
Do inner twists of soul and words wield black plagued rotted
Tendrils like a Scottish Leo can with bare paws and limbs clad in
Bloodied tartan rip rip ripping with liberties unbluntable claws.
Can a Coer de lion fight harder than a warrior poet?
Am I a coward to craft curves defiant alone splitting heads bloodless?
Words seep and spill into deepened dark sorrowed chasms
Echo, kissing arms eyes crying souls breaking dreams alive forever.

J.J. Goodman
Philosophy student, Creative Writing Society committee member