Comments : Occurram Et Obviam Ibo

  • 9 years ago

    by Maple Tree

    Beyond powerful!!!

  • 9 years ago

    by Darren

    Holy shyster

    someone nominate this please

    just for the title

    (I have used up my noms)

    Jean, you are demonic when it comes to writing powerful poetry.

    awesome

  • 9 years ago

    by Maple Tree

    I got it nominated Darren :-)

  • 9 years ago

    by Larry Chamberlin

    Seems both a paean to Caius and the expression of inmost feelings. The metaphor of warrior propels the reader majestically, heroically, through the promise of battle, the inevitability of injury.

    Yet, you claim these injuries as your own ("Scar upon scar, each self-inflicted / as I am the sovereign of myself"). With such an insight you embrace your hurts as part of your payment for the path you choose.

    You also challenge the vagaries of providence ("Death, I promise I will meet you, / but not until I prove that even Gods / can be blind in their judgments"). Understanding that fairness and justice have no guarantees makes taking up the challenge an even greater undertaking.

    Yet, there is a certain naivety here: "To reject nothingness and yearn, / through despair and dread: / This time truly, I swear, / that I will face it, / and endure it all." You are in some manner tilting at windmills, but in just an heroic style as Quixote himself. Rejecting nothingness, denying nihilism is an ironic position to take, given the connection this title has to Final Fantasy XIII and Caius. On the other hand, it makes perfect sense, for in destroying the paradoxes the world is saved from nothingness.

    • 7 years ago

      by Kakera

      My reply to your comment is over a year late, but I must say that I'm surprised that ANYONE made the connection as perfectly as you did. Indeed, it is everything you have written in your comment, and was intended to be that. People underestimate the narrative prowess video-games can have, and the tragedy of Caius in the way he was written is something that I carry with me. This poem is a paean to him - but it's also a naive wishful thinking of what I want to be. The connection to myself comes from many aspects of it, but the biggest part is me struggling to deny nihilism itself. It was a fun write overall.