Today the Knight of Doleful Countenance
would not assault our giants in the sky–
those monstrous dandelions whose white arms
of balsa-wood moan deeply as they turn
and often break away, or crash and burn.
Cervantes’ Don Quixote would respect
today’s gaunt windmills’ dated loyalty -
like his to tarnished codes of chivalry -
in still contending with the Giant Warming
whose menace, overblown, has passed away.
I picture him and bony Rosinante
posed with a giant pinwheel, skeletal,
whose day, like theirs, is done while what remains
recalls old loves, arms bravely raised, campaigns
which, long betrayed, still honor lost ideals.
They try so hard one’s soul must sympathize
with wasted effort, industry, good heart
expended in their quest to save a world
conjecturals no longer terrorize,
which neither needs nor wants its rescuers.
original version;
Today the Knight of Doleful Countenance
would not assault our giants in the sky–
those monstrous dandelions whose white arms
of balsa-wood moan deeply as they turn
and often break away, or crash and burn.
He of La Mancha, rather, would respect
today’s gaunt windmills’ dated loyalty -
like his to tarnished codes of chivalry -
in still contending with the giant Warming
whose fraudulence collapsed and blew away.
I picture him and bony Rosinante
posed with a giant pinwheel, skeletal,
whose day, like theirs, is done while what remains
recalls old loves, arms bravely raised, campaigns
which, long betrayed, still honor lost ideals.
They try so hard one’s soul must sympathize
with wasted effort, industry, good heart
expended in their quest to save a world
which doesn’t need their rescue, or their part:
pawns moved by folly, tragic from the start.
(07-29-2026, 05:33 AM)dukealien Wrote: Once Enemies
Today the Knight of Doleful Countenance
would not assault our giants in the sky–
those monstrous dandelions whose white arms
of balsa-wood moan deeply as they turn
and often break away, or crash and burn.
He of La Mancha, rather, would respect
today’s gaunt windmills’ dated loyalty -
like his to tarnished codes of chivalry -
in still contending with the giant Warming
whose fraudulence collapsed and blew away.
I picture him and bony Rosinante
posed with a giant pinwheel, skeletal,
whose day, like theirs, is done while what remains
recalls old loves, arms bravely raised, campaigns
which, long betrayed, still honor lost ideals.
They try so hard one’s soul must sympathize
with wasted effort, industry, good heart
expended in their quest to save a world
which doesn’t need their rescue, or their part:
pawns moved by folly, tragic from the start.
More than solid work with rhyme and meter; well done. I find the content mostly somewhere between mildly interesting and boring, probably because the poem quickly becomes repetitive/fails to deliver on its promise of taking these characters someplace new. Things peak for me in the first stanza, where the dandelion metaphor is deftly executed and a whole world of thematic possibility seems to have opened for our exploration. The subsequent stanzas shut this door. Instead of having the kind of allusive adventure I was hoping for, we kind of plod through what I can't help but receiving as a rather dour disquisition on familiar themes of industrial excess, the fundamental waste and decay of modernity, and more than a whiff of ideological nostalgia. The parts that most directly expound on these themes - the last lines of S2 and S3 - were the most difficult for me to engage with / suspend my disbelief about.
Some light cruft here and there to flag: "He of La Mancha, rather," is a lot of syllables to reestablish who our protagonist is. "whose day... lost ideals" is a bit of a mouthful to read aloud.
I kinda dig "a world [that] doesn't need their rescue, or their part" but rhyming with/ending on "from the start" gets a groan out of me. Ditto "pawns by folly" which combines cliche with affected archness - that's a no from me, dogg!
(07-29-2026, 05:33 AM)dukealien Wrote: Once Enemies
Today the Knight of Doleful Countenance
would not assault our giants in the sky–
those monstrous dandelions whose white arms
of balsa-wood moan deeply as they turn
and often break away, or crash and burn.
He of La Mancha, rather, would respect
today’s gaunt windmills’ dated loyalty -
like his to tarnished codes of chivalry -
in still contending with the giant Warming
whose fraudulence collapsed and blew away.
I picture him and bony Rosinante
posed with a giant pinwheel, skeletal,
whose day, like theirs, is done while what remains
recalls old loves, arms bravely raised, campaigns
which, long betrayed, still honor lost ideals.
They try so hard one’s soul must sympathize
with wasted effort, industry, good heart
expended in their quest to save a world
which doesn’t need their rescue, or their part:
pawns moved by folly, tragic from the start.
I think the metaphor is rather clever and I enjoyed the inversion as well as the word play, imagery and thought. Some of the lines are quite clever( those monstrous dandelions whose white arms
of balsa-wood moan deeply as they turn)
I appreciate that the narrator refuses to explain themselves but the poem fails when the narraotr goes to extreme lenghts to avoid explaining himself (lines like He of La Mancha, rather, would respect, Today the Knight of Doleful Countenance) and there are some other areas where the phrasing gets clumsy or awkward but you will probably run into those on your edit either way.
Overall, I like the cleverness and i think the metaphor may be yours alone for now - at least I havent run into it yet.
The metaphor - windmills representing the folly of fighting climate change - is tiresome, and there is little point in criticising a poem where the narrator comes across as a fool.
If the metaphor was intended to be something else, then it’s so vague as to be useless
One might as well write a richly ironic poem against the round earth theory. The irony always redounds on the poet in such cases.
In short, this poem is a waste of the reader’s time
(07-29-2026, 05:39 PM)busker Wrote: The metaphor - windmills representing the folly of fighting climate change - is tiresome, and there is little point in criticising a poem where the narrator comes across as a fool.
This might actually be a good point - the metaphor is so overused I actually glossed right through it as an accepted plot device.
The interesting metaphor was the inversion of Don Quixote tilting at windmills to windmills tilting at him showing the changing agency in a modern world and of course it would evaporate without windmills as a plot device
Today the Knight of Doleful Countenance
would not assault our giants in the sky–
those monstrous dandelions whose white arms
of balsa-wood moan deeply as they turn
and often break away, or crash and burn.
Cervantes’ Don Quixote would respect
today’s gaunt windmills’ dated loyalty -
like his to tarnished codes of chivalry -
in still contending with the Giant Warming
whose menace, overblown, has passed away.
I picture him and bony Rosinante
posed with a giant pinwheel, skeletal,
whose day, like theirs, is done while what remains
recalls old loves, arms bravely raised, campaigns
which, long betrayed, still honor lost ideals.
They try so hard one’s soul must sympathize
with wasted effort, industry, good heart
expended in their quest to save a world
conjecturals no longer terrorize,
which neither needs nor wants its rescuers.
Sincere thanks to all critics, particularly in pointing out the weakness of the ending and the rather arch failure to actually identify the literary reference.
I particularly enjoyed @milo's initial enjoyment of the poem's concept until the shibboleth being Gored was identified to him. I would mildly contend that the folly of wind turbines specifically and CAGCC* theory generally can be quite novel if one's current-affairs reading is restricted to progressive/legacy outlets.
An area not addressed (a companion poem, perhaps?) is that Cervantes' Quixote was less an admirable old fool than a haughty and blind one constantly misled by his preconceptions; I've leaned into the modern view of him as a hopeless striver here. A better (or another) way to work the metaphor would be to see Sancho Panza in the armies of erectors and maintainers who keep the wind turbines turning at great expense and considerable danger to themselves. What they think of the enterprise - and its committed leaders - is matter for conjecture.
*CAGCC = Catastrophic Althropogenic Global Climate Change
(07-31-2026, 06:38 AM)dukealien Wrote: I would mildly contend that the folly of wind turbines specifically and CAGCC* theory generally can be quite novel if one's current-affairs reading is restricted to progressive/legacy outlets.
It is not surprising that a knowledge of engineering and economics is beyond the grasp of those that do their research on stopthesethings.com and partake of what the YouTube algorithm shovels down their throat.
Nevertheless, the quarrel is not with the personal, smug ignorance that an individual after all has all the right to maintain, but with poetry that pushes a particularly brainless message in an unironic fashion.
Today the Knight of Doleful Countenance
would not assault our giants in the sky–
those monstrous dandelions whose white arms
of balsa-wood moan deeply as they turn
and often break away, or crash and burn.
Cervantes’ Don Quixote would respect
today’s gaunt windmills’ dated loyalty -
like his to tarnished codes of chivalry -
in still contending with the Giant Warming
whose menace, overblown, has passed away.
I picture him and bony Rosinante
posed with a giant pinwheel, skeletal,
whose day, like theirs, is done while what remains
recalls old loves, arms bravely raised, campaigns
which, long betrayed, still honor lost ideals.
They try so hard one’s soul must sympathize
with wasted effort, industry, good heart
expended in their quest to save a world
conjecturals no longer terrorize,
which neither needs nor wants its rescuers.
Sincere thanks to all critics, particularly in pointing out the weakness of the ending and the rather arch failure to actually identify the literary reference.
I particularly enjoyed @milo's initial enjoyment of the poem's concept until the shibboleth being Gored was identified to him. I would mildly contend that the folly of wind turbines specifically and CAGCC* theory generally can be quite novel if one's current-affairs reading is restricted to progressive/legacy outlets.
An area not addressed (a companion poem, perhaps?) is that Cervantes' Quixote was less an admirable old fool than a haughty and blind one constantly misled by his preconceptions; I've leaned into the modern view of him as a hopeless striver here. A better (or another) way to work the metaphor would be to see Sancho Panza in the armies of erectors and maintainers who keep the wind turbines turning at great expense and considerable danger to themselves. What they think of the enterprise - and its committed leaders - is matter for conjecture.
*CAGCC = Catastrophic Althropogenic Global Climate Change
I would have thought it more interesting for the Don to be easily fooled into believing windmills are some plot and not just engineering and capitalism finding a way to deliver energy - it seems more in his personality but then I suppose we would lose the modern change of agency
Non-practicing atheist
