Old Lingard’s tune

I like today’s test, it being to write a poem that involves alliteration, consonance, and assonance. Alliteration is the repetition of a particular consonant sound at the beginning of multiple words. Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds elsewhere in multiple words, and assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds. Traci Brimhall’s poem “A Group of Moths” provides a great example of these poetic devices at work, with each line playing with different sounds that seem to move the poem along on a sonorous wave.

I often employ those three devices in my work, I find I fall to them with the ease of an alligator’s grin. I’m away this weekend, trying to catch things other than rhymes and sniffles, so I’ve been working on this one for a few days to lighten the load on the day of departure.

You can read the background to this gory story and Derbyshire dales tale here.

….

In the shadow of the ancient pulpit, the moss green wall dragon sleeps.
There, by the twisting mess of the cress-swollen crystal-clear brook,
On whose banks illusive plum tinted orchids plump delicate petals with diamond dew,
And Orange Tips skip and flutter by like all the other butterflies do,
From bursting bud to bursting bud, dancing in and out of the dappled wood.

Here, the packhorse hooves are heard no more,
Clipping and clopping on toward the moor,
But the wind still whistles as it was willed before;
Through the caged bones of men.

For ten long years of tears Lingard there remained,
On Peter’s Stone, his last blood did drain.
He was to pay the price for his murderous deeds,
Coldy committed on dark New Year’s Eve.
When he strangled poor Molly for the red shoes on her feet,
To pay a bribe to a non-bride so their secret she’d keep,
But a gibbet holds no secrets, as the locals could spy,
As did the ravens as they pecked at their prize,
For ten winters the frost fed his flesh to the worms,
And ten burning summers his bones they did burn,
And the wind it whistled and played its tunes in turn,
Sometimes through his bleached ribs, sometimes through his teeth.
So, his family and friends in the village beneath,
Were haunted by the rattles that hunted their sleep.

Some say, down in Cressbrook,
By the light of the moon,
You can see barefoot Molly,
With a swing and a swoon,
Invite young men to dance,
Then they never head home,
While she keeps the wind playing,
On old Lindgard’s bones.

….