This is a repost from last year’s NaPoWriMoNov Google Wave, for archival purposes.
This is in fact my second ballad attempt this week, but my first stalled about half-way through (around the time I realized that my rhyme scheme was backwards). The meter is generally quatrains of iambic tetrameter and trimeter, with anapests to give it some flow.
This is barely readable in its current form, but that’s good enough for NaPoWriMoNov! Believe it or not this is based on two Actual (though unrelated) Experiences. A perfectly confounding mix of truth and fiction…
The Ballad of Alister Croft
Past ten at night young Alister was feeling like a jerk; he'd left his new wife home alone and hurried back to work. For though he'd married a fine young girl he kept another lover: artistic talent, which he'd hoped ambition would uncover. And so, of habit, Alister went out late and alone along the fog-dark city streets where phantom halos shone. The street lamps flickered on and off as Alister walked his route. Then, as he reached his studio a chill wind blew them out. He sought the moon, but found it lost-- masked by a sable cloud-- and hoped that yet the stars shone bright beyond this heavenly shroud. Young Alister's weak pulse awoke, and tersely gripped his key when cross the road he glimpsed some glow haunting the cemetery. Though sharp of mind, Alister Croft was easily unnerved and feared this devil glow had come to wreak what he deserved. "That's what you get for going out alone at night to roam, abandoning your wife for work, neglecting your new home." "Now look, you fool," he chided himself, "How easily you scare! That glow is just a flash light beam, just school kids on a dare." Alister grinned, then sharply laughed to pierce his swollen fear-- but then he heard a stranger's steps approaching from the rear. He did not turn to see who came, not wanting to seem strange, but sped his stride to spread the space, avoiding an exchange. The footsteps quickened in response. The clack of high heel shoes came faster, proving she would be impossible to lose. When Alister turned, so she did too, and at a maddening clip! He prayed the office doors, though locked, would soon be in his grip. Just feet away! But Alister's poor heart could not endure; he turned to cease the woman's chase-- but the stranger was no more. The sidewalk that they had traversed was silver, pure, and stark. No one was seen, and nothing heard but Alister's beating heart. A freezing wind pushed him on, so Alister keyed the door, but as the catch unclicked a voice speared him to his core. "Dear Alister, I don't know you-- I see you've changed a lot. You're no longer the cruel lad who scorned the love I sought." He recognized the voice, and turned but wasn't prepared for the sight of a youthful love, a child hood crush: Amanda in the wan moon light. "You've grown so tall, your chest is full, but your face is just the same. Again I crave your skin, your lips. Oh, Allister, speak my name!" "Amanda," Alister let cry, "But you've been gone for years." "You left me, love, and so from my cries I drowned myself in tears." "The things you said were horrible-- the rumors that they fed! Your vengeful words haunted me till my virgin flesh was dead. "But now I see how much you've changed my loins burn as before; I think I feel my cold heart beat, so hold me, just once more!" "My lost Amanda, please forgive my vicious teenage gloom that caused you foul and endless grief and sped you to your tomb. "But I have love here in this world-- I have a wife who's warm... Yet can't deny my blood beats fast to see your unspoiled form..." "Well, why not, lover? Why not come and spend an hour with me? Come, feel delight, and purge your soul of evil done to me." So Alister went with the corpse and saw his wife no more. No note nor trace was found, except his key in the studio door.
