The Soul Room

This is a reworking of a piece I wrote many years ago and have since lost. A couple weeks ago, I sat down and wrote this completely revised tribute to it.

This is the soul room,
A place for the damned.
Those here are lost,
Beyond what was planned!

Prophets set forward
The days yet to unfold,
In the scrolls of the souls,
Such tales were told.
Pawns moved by guilt,
And overshadowed with blame,
Would unknowingly play,
Into the prophet’s cold game.
Following the paths,
As the prophet’s pens told it,
All standing back laughing
As they would behold it.
Till one day their laughter
All at once, simply stopped.
For several of the pawns began
To turn away from the flock.
With eyes and minds open,
They’d stumbled onto the pages
And altered all that’s to come
For the rest of the ages!

This is the soul room,
A place for the damned.
Those here are lost,
Both beaten and banned!

Pawns reset standards
And lines were redrawn.
As they turned from the scrolls
To build a new dawn.
The prophets grew angry
At the pawn’s petulant defiance.
Who refused to look again
To their words for guidance.
So in their burning anger
For suffering such fools,
The prophets came together
And altered the rules.
Pouring new volumes of text
Each inked with malice,
Onto the soul scrolls,
To turn loyal pawns callous.
They in turn, turned on those
Who refused to conform,
Trying to force them to follow
The paths of the norm!

This is the soul room,
A place for the damned.
Those here sought refuge,
From the hatred of man.
Condemned by the callous,
Fought by the frightened,
And this was all they had left,
As terror’s grip tightened!

Prophets set the tables,
Knowing just how to turn them,
And having built the bridges
They knew when to burn them.
So when the defiant pawns
Met in their desperate helter-skelter,
They would be forever trapped
In the place they sought shelter.
The prophets would leave nothing
In this bitter plan to chance,
Turning the pawns into victims
Of this pompous circumstance.
Punishing the willful
For roles played, and rules defied,
For it challenged the prophets’
Sense of control and their pride.
The masses moved according
To the will of the pages,
And the defiant were damned
To this chamber for ages!

This is the soul room,
A place for the damned.
Those here are lost,
Just as I am.
But the prophets all fear
The day they can’t help but see,
The day we all find our way,
And fight to be free!

This is the soul room,
A place for the damned...

(5/9/08)

Reviews

[ganymeder]

Wow, that was fantastic! Very powerful.

I really love the rhyming structure. I could see this as a song too.

What I got out of it was the idea that prophecies are self fulfilling to the extent that people believe them to be true. But by challenging that, breaking the mold, you break the prophecies too.
Also, people of religious authority have power that they would not willingly relinquish if challenged, hence religious persecution.

Very strong imagery. I loved it.

Thank you for sharing it.

[Wolfwind Words]

This was fantastic! I believe this was about Religion and how it tramples and confines the free thinkers of society. It plays it's game always trying to damn those who have broken from it's grasp. Just as the Celts were persicuted by the Holy Roman Church long ago.

I found this to be a piece that i could relate to; seeing all of the songs that have been snuffed out by oversized and egotized religious and political organizations.

Great Write!
Infinity's Shadow

[Sophie Wind]

Wow the form is like a miracle it's like a song easy and flowing and rhymes well
However I would be happy for a few guidelines, for me it's a little though to make sense
I know people say it only counts what what the reader thinks you intend to mean, but I'd like to know what YOU were thinking about