You just never know when poetry will pop up. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve started hanging out on The Nassot’s Twitch Stream when I’m doing layout. There’s a nice group of people over there. I listen while work and it keeps me entertained. We laugh a lot and it feels very much like having a social life.
At the end of March I told Nassot he should have a poetry open mic on Minecraft, one of the games he plays. Somehow it turned into “Viking Poetry Night” as a joke and then I forgot about it—until the first week in April when I logged in and found out it was Viking Poetry Night on Minecraft after all. Since I’d suggested it, I felt obligated to come up with a poem.
Remember my silly poem, “The Writer’s Wish?” I shared my terrible reading of it here. I cheated and just rewrote that one to be “A Viking’s Wish.” It’s what we do when we have to write a poem in five minutes to be read on Minecraft… we improvise. So that was my craziest impromptu reading ever. How about you?
And, since you’ve come this far, my five minute Viking poem rehab:
A Viking’s Wish (for The Nassot)
If I could raid a village here
and plunder serfs trembling in fear
I’d jump up quick off my soft rear
and gallop to my wagon where
my bony horse in basket shits
and eyes enemies thru narrow slits
because a Viking never quits
when equipped with ax, muscles and wits.
A Viking almost never bleeds
or whines, complains, gets cold or reads
or gets a horse stuck in the weeds
or, when seeing enemies, ever flees.
A Viking’s life for me each day
My horse now fat and me well paid.