Valhalla's waiting room

[Keith]

Our story should not be crushed,
one to be told, booming in great halls
with dripping goblets and roaring fires,
boar's legs, pig's heads and laughter.
Not lost to papers, shuffled on table tops
picked at by who, has what, and not.

Our village smashed, hammer and axe,
babies wrapped and crying passed,
my chest slashed with rugged blade,
anger stayed but at what cost?
I bathe with floating candles,
pennies swapped for pound coins
on eyes that wont open;
without you.

Hello, TimeOnMyHands.

Valhalla, as you are surely aware, was in Norse myth the great hall of Odin where warriors who died in battle dwelt eternally.

You have set your poem (according to its title) in the waiting room of the great hall. So it could follow that notwithstanding their having died in battle, the deceased warriors were still not quite ready for admission. (Is that part of the tradition?)

Here we have one particular warrior who apparently wants his story recited (i.e. verbally) rather than written down, since the pages of the saga could be swallowed up in the confusion of food and other assorted items on the dining table.

The narrator then describes the events which presumably resulted in his death.

I assumed (rightly or incorrectly) that your reference to ‘floating candles’ referred to the method of disposal of the body. (There is a popular tradition of dead Vikings being pushed out to sea in funerary boats, accompanied by floating candles; but I understand that this is incorrect, and that Vikings were buried on land – though in a boat of wood or stone.)

I wondered who the narrator was addressing in his poem – the ‘you’ referred to in the last line on the poem?

As a final bit of nitpicking, I think your punctuation could benefit from close inspection and revision. For example, in the words ‘pig’s heads’ the apostrophe in ‘pig’s’ should come after the ‘s’. And I simply couldn’t unveil the meaning of ‘babies wrapped and crying passed’.

Despite all this, I think you have a great idea here for a saga (of the Norse variety) of your own. So good luck if you contemplate a revision.

Regards and best wishes.

Pilgrim.

Thank you pilgrim for such a considered reply sorry for the late reply, have been away, I had stripped out some of the tell from this one, maybe I went too far. This is about divorce, the first stanza is a man who doesn’t want the divorce and is disgusted that his life has come down to shuffling papers and feels is was so much more than that. The second is the bitterness that inevitably comes with separation life torn apart and children caught in the middle. The pound coins on eyes are symbolic of a broken warrior who lost it all and can’t move on as he still loves his ex wife. Hope this makes some sense. TOMH

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Hi,
A good read. I enjoyed the use of Viking imagery, the first stanza especially so is full of well defined images.
The first four lines of the second stanza read very well with that crisscross rhyming that creates the sense of mayhem being experienced. Apart from the slight punctuation errors previously pointed out there's nothing more to criticise.
I don't understand the last bit, although having read the previous comments by Pilgrim it might make more sense. It's the "pennies swapped for pound coins" line that I'm not getting, although saying that I've just read the whole thing again and it is perhaps unravelling before me.
Cheers for the read.

Thanks for taking the time to comment the swap to pound coins was to show we are in the present and the battle scared man can't function without the life and love he lost but he's not dead just cant move on TOMH

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Our story should not be crushed,
one to be told, booming in great halls
with dripping goblets and roaring fires,
boar's legs, pig's heads and laughter.
Not lost to papers, shuffled on table tops
picked at by who, has what, and not.

Our village smashed, hammer and axe,
babies wrapped and crying passed,
my chest slashed with rugged blade,
anger stayed but at what cost?
I bathe with floating candles,
pennies swapped for pound coins
on eyes that wont open;
without you.

i've read a version of this before, i'm sure.

this reads much better. the theme and extended metaphor make it much stronger. the conflict is evident as is the aftermath. the death is a metaphorical one, i like it.

Thanks Billy I split this out from another poem based on your suggestion and created two. In the other one he gets the girl back