Jolie's Hollow Related Poetry

All poems on this page were written by Jolie's player for various Hollow characters or roleplays.

The Ballad of Leo and Jack

- for Leoxander, August 2006

Leo and Jack (also known as 'the Black')

were travellers, so it was claimed;

free spirits who roamed, with nowhere to call home -

though a fortnight in mine they remained.

I found him half-drowned, with his dog, on the Sound,

washed up like a dead man to shore.

'Twas days 'fore he spoke, and his first words a joke:

"Won't they let a man die, anymore?"

Snaked 'round his arms were nautical charms

tattooed in black ink, on brown skin,

and one of his eyes was blue as the sky

while the other was crimson as sin.

Blond was the haze which hung over that gaze,

and his murmur a ruffian's brogue

when he drew, without haste, one arm 'round my waist:

"Love me not, for I'm only a rogue."

He tasted of brine as his lips pressed to mine,

and I watched his eyes drift to the ocean;

I knew the cruel sea was his mistress, not me -

'twas to her that he'd pledged his devotion.

One night I awoke as through cloud moonlight broke;

beside me, a sheet of worn paper

with inelegant script - just a single line writ:

"Me and Jack gotta run. See ya later."

The Last Avian

- for Demont, July 2007

Torn from Hell's grip, thrown back

into a world that died to him long ago,

he mourns its ancient storm-lit skies.

His silvered eyes look only

to the past, where once was glory.

Warriors, all ghosts now, incant

battle-hymns in the great banquet-halls

of his mind, shields and tankards

raised in honour of those days, bright

as burnished steel, when the air

was thick with blood's metallic reek,

white wings were stained red

as rising suns, and his fierce cry

rang like Judgment's last knell

in the ears of the wounded and dying.

Now, the days all blend to a blur.

He wonders how and why the glory waned,

how the great could fall so low -

but in him the old days live: a memory,

forged from iron, struck on brimstone.

Lady Wigglebum

- for some Very Special People

My name is Lady Wigglebum,

I just blew in from Someplace Else -

excuse me, whilst I NPC

my Royal Guard and hired help.

My Royal murdered Mum and Dad,

whose Kingdom I have come to claim

(despite the fact it's Someplace Else),

bequeathed to me my Royal name.

I'd be a goddess - but the Wiki

said I can't! And that's no fun!

So I'll just be insanely pretty

and never age past twenty-one,

and swan around in silver gowns,

smile and bow and nod a lot,

and cyber vampires in the mines

'cos slumming kinda makes me hot.

And when my b/f IRL

is finished with his Warcraft craze

he'll come to duel you all to hell

for kicks (just like the good old days).

'Til then, I'll whine on OOC

and bitch you out on MSN,

while sitting 'round the Kelay Tav

*emoting glomps* to all my friends.

The Smiling Man

- for Diiroehn the Lich, May 2008

He's got a white-bone grin, a subtle tick

to all his moves - but still a little slick,

like gibbet-fat gone rancid in the sun.

He's got no heart, no soul, nor anyone

to stir the ashes of his long-dead fires -

the Smiling Man knows nothing of desire.

He walks the earth, a remnant of himself,

a withered echo, amassing vast wealth

and power - cold amusement, filling time.

He knows the eons reeling in his mind

are only moments in some bigger plan.

Years mean nothing, to the Smiling Man.

The machinations hatching in his brain

will one day flee his grizzled skull - a bane

upon the world, a curse, a seething blight.

He'll go not gentle into any night,

but steel himself against a paling sun

and, smiling, watch the stars die, one by one.

A Wolf's Tale

-For Mahri, June 2011

The girl she was believed in happy endings,

in white knights, a prince upon a horse,

who'd save her from the clutches of the beast -

or provide a steady income, at the least.

What joyful, secret hours she stole, pretending

in Mother's only silk dress - white, of course -

to be the bride her father would give away,

the daughter they'd be proud of, on that day.

The heart she had was wild, and full of wonder;

it often led her feet to traipse the woods

where she, like the animals, went shoeless

and to peril, unlike them, wandered clueless.

Into that forest, innocent, she'd blunder,

a trusting child; to her, the world was good,

until the savage beast sprang from its lair -

no prince arrived to save that maiden fair.

Far from here, those many moons ago,

the girl fell to the beast she'd come to be -

and, as all things under the sun must change,

below the moon she grew passing strange.

Murder was her world, then; too, the glow

of star-reflections spangled on the sea,

the forest and all the meat that runs there

on hoof or human feet - she wouldn't care.

But through a sleepy town's window-lights

this truth offers her a worse bite:

a child on father's knee, a mother's glory,

and the happiness that is no fairy-story.