A Veteran's Journey

A bag full of medals and honors by his side,

he holds it cuddled to his uniform with pride-

legacy of those years.

Amnesia plays with his fading identity,

he wants an abode of lasting serenity-

struggling against his fears.

Ghosts of valiant shadows emerging from war drums,

his trembling nights still echo haunting gloomy strums-

deep scars of blazing spears.

Wars have destroyed his paradise in insane sparks,

he finds a tranquil home to remove raging marks-

hopes dance behind his tears.

Blissful mellows wrap his sizzling pain in starlight,

an old age home welcomes a lost glorious knight-

veteran with new peers.

*This poem has been written using Tail-Rhyme form which is a French poetry form that begins with either a couplet or a triplet of lines that consist of rhymed lines. This set of either a couplet or triplet is then followed by a "tail", which is the third or fourth line that does not rhyme with the couplet or triplet that preceded it. This tail line tends to be shorter in length than those lines within the couplet or triplet. This type of poetry can also be used with stanza, known as a tail-rhyme stanza, but in these pieces, all of the tail lines rhyme with each other. The use of tail rhymes in literature was often found in several different Middle English romance pieces. First there is a rhyming couplet then a third and shorter line. There is another couplet that rhymes with the first one and the sixth, shorter line that rhymes with the third line. This gives us a suggested pattern : aabccbddbeebffb*