I was trying to clean up my computer today, and in the process came across one of my first attempts at writing ever. I think it's just adorable in how naive it is, even though I am embarassed at some of it (see *).

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The Lord Of Rox

The noble lord went hunting on his horse,
Protected by his soldiers, of course,
Deer, elephant, tiger and fox
Weren’t safe from the Lord Of Rox.
But the lord would not eat their meat,
For he felt after injuring them, hunting was complete.
Now, he spotted a yellow sickly deer,
Which for some reason was full of fear.

He watched the deer run away,
Not characteristic of a sick one, you could say.
The lord was puzzled and went on further,
Only to witness cold blooded murder.
The murderer ran on the lord’s sight,
While the deceased man seemed to be in great plight.
The lord rushed to the poor man,
And suddenly all of his soldiers ran.

They ran away and left the lord
In a place whose location he could not record.
That deer, first of all, couldn’t have been from his land,
And here there was much darker sand.
There was something about this place that gave him the creeps,
Something was in the ground and in the teak.
The man now could barely speak,
But a few words he could bleat.
“Go away from this land, go!
Leave here before the morrow,
This land is no good, no good at all,
Only a fool like me would live here and fall.”

The man collapsed dead on the ground,
Causing more and more strange sounds.
Sounds that were near.
Sounds that were clear.
There was something behind the bushes, for sure
Something about which the lord didn’t want to know more.
But something he knew he had to face,
Something for which he should brace.
“Who’s there?”, asked the frightened lord,
As he remembered many a frightening accord.
Accords of things he’d rather not meet,
Neither would his whole fleet.

Suddenly, there was a noise.
A scary noise.
An unknown noise.
From the bush it came,
For the lord to say he was brave it would be lame,
And out of it came a hideous creature,
Which didn’t look like it was going to be a preacher.
It did look, however, hungry,
And the lord would nicely fill its tummy.
But now the horse that hadn’t left,
Put the beast to the test,
A test of power, which the horse did give out,
With a mighty leg kick on the creature’s mouth.

The creature went running away,
“I hope that’s the last of it”, the lord did say.
He then hugged his horse and thanked him well,
For saving his life when death he could smell.
Then, he rode his horse far and wide,
To get out of this land he tried,
But in vain they did try,
As luck didn’t comply.

What was in this land, the lord wondered,
As the dead man’s voice in his mind thundered.
What could this land be, first of all?
It was certainly very big and the chances of getting out very small.
The lord wondered how he had never seen this place before,
How he had missed this place was as tough as beating the Minotaur.
He decided to explore this place, even though there was danger,
He knew he had to be careful because here he was a stranger.

Suddenly, a wizard appeared from nowhere,
Thinking and pondering over something,
Before he decided to go somewhere.
Somewhere was where the lord didn’t know,
And he thought as so-
“Who was that wizard,
As white as a blizzard?
Who was the murderer of that man,
Who on seeing me ran?
What was that deer,
Covered with yellow and fear?”
The lord thought to himself.

He went further into the place,
Before he could see,
A place of hardship of sorrow,
A place of tyranny.
It had to be the wizard’s castle,
A castle of doom and greed,
And to get out of it,
Anyone would plead.

The lord thought further about everything,
And now remembered
The probable answer.
The deer.
It brought him here.
It must have been some kind of spirit,
It ran in the forest.
There was the key.

Back to the forest went the king,
Hoping to find the deer,
With courage and determination
As would have any peer.
And the deer he couldn’t find, neither could he find the dead man,
This puzzle was tearing the lord’s mind, the facts in his brain swam.
“Where is the deer?” thought the lord,
He gave up and went back to the castle,
Only to find the castle, the puzzle’s core,
Stood there no more.

“What happened?” thought the lord,
He was getting tired of this little trouble on his own accord.
Next minute he looked back,
And saw the wizard there,
But now he looked more evil,
Evil enough not to spare.
The king knew not what to do,
His mind was in a confused state,
Maybe, he thought, just maybe,
This was to be his fate.

And his fate it was, as the wizard struck his spell,
And then he changed.
To a deer.
To a man.
To another man.
And now to the lord of Rox.
And off the wizard went to what was now his kingdom.

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This was actually published in the school magainze, and caused an endless spate of jokes about it being the greatest poem ever. By the dating on the original, it seems to have been written only 6 years ago. I would've suspected it predated that, but anyhow, it's funny how much has changed since then (yes, yes, this is me starting once again on a trip down memory lane; don't worry, I won't bore you with the details this time). Obviously my idea of a poem back then was something that had lots and lotsa rhyme!! Some of the rhyme is so obviously forced, but that only adds to the charm. Not that my current idea of what constitutes a poem is any better, though. I'll wager I never thought I'd be writing some of the morbid things of the past few weeks.

Lines like "Suddenly, there was a noise / A scary noise / An unknown noise" make me want to laugh and cry at the same time!

* Is it odd to find my own work charming? I suppose I consider the person who wrote that poem to be totally different to I am now, as though I've totally distanced myself from the past. Not out of a sense of superiority, but out of sadness and a melancholic feeling that I've changed for the worse.