Anna Cates
Warrior in Chains
I have murdered the darkness in my dreams
Igniting the night with funeral pyres
I have tortured the shadows till daylight screams
I have murdered the darkness in my dreams
I have conquered vipers, man and machine,
Closed eyes, coined lids, forged fetters,
In my ire, murdered the darkness in my dreams
Igniting the night with funeral pyres
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Dr. Anna Cates teaches college and graduate-level writing, literature, and education online. She has published a variety of books (poetry, fiction, and drama) through www.cyberwit.net, prolificpress.com, redmoonpress.com, and wipfandstock.com. Her full-length poetry collection Love in the Time of Covid won an Illumination Book Award. She resides in Wilmington, Ohio with her beautiful kitty, Fifi.
Author’s Notes/Backstory: “Warrior in Chains” is a poem that typifies my poetic style for its theme of death, its darkness, and its form. Many, though certainly not all, of my poems are in a Japanese short form or a traditional Western form, such as the triolet, my overall favorite Western form. My chapbook, 39 Triolets (Cyberwit Press 2023) further attests to this fact. I find literary devices highly desirable in poems, and I was pleased with the irony that emerged in this piece.
Editor’s Comments: A triolet is an eight-line poem with a strict ABaAabAB rhyme scheme, featuring heavy repetition of the first and second lines to create a witty or reflective tone. Lines 1, 4, and 7 are identical, while lines 2 and 8 are identical. It is a French form often used for short, lighthearted verse [poets.org | Academy of American Poets]. Image credit of the fire (by Stefan Geisler from Pixabay