Showing posts with label ballads. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ballads. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

The Ballad of Benjamin

Western Leopard Toad

The Ballad of Benjamin

Benjamin was his name, oh
And a happy frog was he
Despite the fact that he could not see
The rest of the world dwelt in misery

Benjamin wished to share this feeling
That welled up inside his soul
With bird and fox and mole
To spread joy was his goal

Without working eyes
Benjamin dared not travel long
So he sang a heartfelt song
In a voice both clear and strong

The other creatures in the land
Came to listen to the tune
In Benjamin's voice of bassline boom
As he bestowed his gleeful boon

Soon Benjamin's goal was met
Through his song of gleeful mirth
Happiness spread around the earth
Where once there was a dearth

Benjamin's good deed brought him goodness in return
Mother Nature blessed him with the gift of sight
He saw his reflection in the light 
At first it gave him quite a fright

Just a moment later, Benjamin laughed at the surprise
"It seems I'm not a frog at all," he said.
"It turns out I'm a toad instead."
But not a single tear was shed

For Benjamin was a happy fellow
Regardless of his outsides

~Aurora~

Note:
I combined two prompts to create this whimsical poem. The Prompts Blog asked us to speculate happiness being invented by a blind frog named Benjamin. It's Open Link Tuesday at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, and they presented the above picture of a Western Leopard Toad. Thus, the Ballad of Benjamin sprang into being. I hope it made you smile a little.

Thursday, October 16, 2014

OctPoWriMo 2014: Day 16


The Ballad of Desmond, Serafina, and Moses

Once upon a time
What happened might blow your mind
At least the night for grim events was correct
It happened on Halloween, as you might expect

The brothers Desmond and Moses
Decorated the cemetery with roses
To keep the dead a-resting in the ground
But they noticed a disturbance on a new mound

They'd never seen anything so frightful
And at the same time so delightful
As the creature that crawled from that unquiet barrow
The sight of her chilled them to the marrow

Her name was Serafina
Her husband couldn't have been mean-a
He beat her beyond an inch of her life
He said she had been an unfaithful wife

The brothers were gifted at talking to the dead
They could have run, but they stayed and faced her instead
They hoped if they approached her in a gentler way
She'd see fit to let them live to see the light of day

"Dear lady why do you rise from your bed in the ground?
The sight of you will terrorize folks all over town!"
The expression on her face was quite intense
"I've only come back to act in my own defense."

"On Halloween, who will notice one zombie more?
I'm going to find my husband and even the score
I'm not here to eat brains or cause infections and rot
I've only come back to get my revenge on that sot"


They walked through the village on that magical night
The witches and devils made quite a sight
Some seemed to be actually floating in air
Moses and Desmond could not help but stare

"What is this sorcery?" Moses asked of his brother
Desmond replied, "I know not, but I'd like to discover.
This is the strangest of Halloweens I've ever seen
I simply must know what all of it means."

"The truth," said Serafina, "is that I am a witch.
Before my husband beat me and left me for dead in a ditch
I cast a spell to bring me back from the grave
He may think that he's won, but he can't be saved."


People in fabulous costumes walked along down the road
There was a lord and a lady, and even a toad
No one paid any mind to the walking dead lady
They found her appearance not one little bit shady


Serafina found her husband passed out drunk on the bed
She dragged him down to the sea and threw him in on his head
He sunk to the depths and the fish ate his eyes
Nobody missed him for they thought him no prize

The brothers thought that Serafina would return to the ground
But she hadn't gotten to live long and wanted to stick around
They feared if she stayed she'd continue to rot
But thought it wouldn't be fair not to give her a shot

As zombies may go, Serafina is really quite nice
She won't eat your brains, she prefers champagne on ice
She sleeps during the day and rises at dark
You sometimes might see her casting spells in the park

You may think our little tale is a bit disconnected
From the world of the undead with brain virus infected
But just as every person doesn't do things the same
Some zombies have things besides brains on the brain

~Gretyll Hus~

Gifted, adjective: Having exceptional talent or natural ability.

Intense, adjective: Of extreme force, degree, or strength; (of an action) highly concentrated; having or showing strong feelings or opinions; extremely earnest or serious.

Rot, verb: (Chiefly of animal or vegetable matter) decay or cause to decay by the action of bacteria and fungi; decompose; gradually deteriorate through lack of attention or opportunity; noun: The process of decaying; rotten or decayed matter; a process of deterioration; a decline in standards.

Prompts Used:

All images besides the first are public domain