The Skald and the Drukkin Troll, by Paul Brooke
Posted on September 26, 2019
Told using 21 different types of hattatal (Norse verse forms).
Hyrniardi
–The Troll’s Verse
Swollen and locked in this curse, stuck,
Swept & cajoled into a troll,
Bypassing crass laws, conviction,
Consequences never ever felt.
Required: reach for drink each day:
Rum, gin, Brennivin (with
shark) or whiskey.
Dry drunk: erase dwarf,
replace with man.
Dry drunk: feel the path
of wrath, death.
Goldralag
–Incantation Verse
The troll dishonored the law.
The troll dishonored women’s bodies.
The troll dishonored his family
To avoid prison,
To avoid penance
& his children’s scorn.
He shall accept this spell.
He shall accept his shape.
Sextánmeter
–Sixteen-Sentenced Verse
Farmers grieved. Folks donated.
Followers prayed. All pitied.
Hoaxes jinxed. Sorcery jerry-rigged.
Judgement suspended. Lawyers fooled.
Stories spun. Naive bamboozled.
Spinsters duped. Children hoodwinked.
Skald queried. He questioned.
Queen scoffed. King rebuked.
Refhvörf
—Antithetical Verse
Haters love the human-troll,
Halfway-whole? Smoothed splinters?
Sheepish wolf? Blood-lusting willows?
Where everything, nothing
makes illogical sense.
Schemers strategize lust &
common decency.
Schemers contemplate occasional loyalty.
Unread skald bangs out valuable baubles,
Brand new wrecks, &
manageable hurricanes.
Alhent
–Fully-Rhymed Verse
Skald studied, scrawled, bloodied
Sanity, prosody, vanity, bourgeoisie,
Taught validation, sought vindication.
Venue disguised, ingénues queued.
Beauteous alhents, gorgeous áttmaelts
Accentuation precision,
anticipating revolution.
Backroom valiants consumed brilliant
Balladry, rapport, & espirit de corps.
Runhendur
–End-Rhymed Verse
Townswomen tacked eiderdown quilts,
Terrified ogress might raid, tilt
Axes, abduct all men, wilt
Ardor, induce personal guilt.
Avoid catastrophe, sally forth search,
Secure wagons, move church.
Drive ogress away, beyond birches,
Between deep spires, her new perch.
Thríhent
–Three-Part Rhyming Verse
The last troll stole mesmeric men,
Mostly young, unsure, & strong.
Yearly, she picked & preyed,
Propelled, then repelled by bethel bells.
The new troll siphoned sloppily,
Sleeping deep on steep
Columnar cliffs, deadly drunk,
Daring, uncaring, barely conscious.
Langloku
–Late Conclusion Verse
Everyone seems calloused, cracked–
Closed off from certainty, facts.
Artists shaped metal,
languished strokes,
Sang churches from foundations.
Doubt wracked all my small ships,
Shattered ribs & seized bilges.
Scuppers plugged; holds fuel-fouled.
–People care, are verse-listening.
Stamhendr
–Stammering Verse
Hammered, he found Fossarfoss,
Frolicked like three children,
Chased after crows. Crowberries
Comforted like warm skyr.
Townsfold ridiculted (his) ridiculous,
Reinforced by verse, they tersely
Judged, knowing crime, criminal,
Curbed moral responsibility.
Áttmaelt
–Eight-Sentenced Verse
Knitters purled stitches like lines.
Laborers fixed fences like stanzas.
Herders sang poems to spring lambs.
Smiths rang songs to raging iron.
Laziness never righted the riggwelter.
Recent shornies must have summer.
Excessiveness winnows the weak.
Winter cattle need barriers from wind.
Ordskviduháttr
–Proverb Verse
One should not live only in the city.
Own actions. Meet for laughter.
Never flee behind masks or flasks.
Find secret waterfalls & discern.
Learn neighbors. Greet derelict dogs.
Do read others lives like long novels.
Don’t hurry children. Have patience.
Help elders harvest without payment.
Skiálfthenda
–Shivering Verse
Sickened, townsfolk thought, acted,
“Take down troll from his rock.
Make him face himself as a man.
He has disguised truth for too long.”
Roped, anchored to barn, troll begged,
Begged for drink; they offered water.
Sobriety loomed, dropped like fog,
Lowering itself into the valley.
Dróttvaett
—Five-Syllables Staggered Verse
Twelve hours passed, no twists.
Troll faded, man (Emil) emerged.
Loose ropes, loops grounded.
Lost in clothes, reduced.
Jury formed. Judge paced.
Jail. Conviction. Time.
Skald saved. Felt valued.
Sensed validation.
Flagdaháttr
–Monster Verse
Emil muttered sorry. Mouthed
Mad apologies. Sad,
Bitter, depressed, did not
Discern badness, wrong turns.
Any antiphons fell flat,
Amends merely empty cups.
Children suborned, subverted.
Seen as means, mechanisms.
Stál
–Inlaid Verse
Now the country showed sense:
Skald was fully enthralled,
Scrawled intimate inscriptions
Inside books, dignified.
Justified, truth triumphed.
Telling “No man is king.”
Lava reshapes land, burns,
Lambastes hate & waste.
Dunhenda
–Echoing Rhyme Verse
Suddenly, skald traveled away,
Strangers willing to pay.
Traversed three continents,
Tried to find contentment.
Crowds couldn’t understand
Cursed trolls or reprimands.
Whispered “Why the repute?
Why the dogged pursuit?”
Tuískelft
–Double Shaken Verse
Deep & dank, the prison
Desolated Emil,
Turning (him) toward assent,
Torrid flows, volcanoes
Boiled whole bodies of lakes:
Baked new land, uncharted.
There, pink, tiny flowers
Thrived, a million bouquets.
Ridhendur
–Rocking Rhyme Verse
Skald unknowingly steered
South, arrived at dungeon.
Guards vigorously guided:
Gruff, aggressive, hostile.
“Troll, magnanimous Troll,
Today I forgive all.
Hate, eviscerating hate
Hampered my happiness.”
Togdrápulag
–Journey-Poem Meter Verse
“That troll perished by
Truth. This man stands stripped,
Humbled by (your) hattetals &. . .
Honored by (your) devotion.”
Skald stepped back by then,
blinked, winced & winked.
“Acceptance proves people, through
prodding, can change, rearrange.”
Formlaus
–Formless Verse
In ceaseless darkness, try
Not to doubt spring, nor
The Soul. Humans tend
Towards troll. Light drives
Them out. Awfulness
Should be buried under-
Ground, left to nourish
Thrift & woolly willows.
Munnvörp
—Improvisation Verse
Oystercatchers nested,
Calmly doting on young.
Glacial rivers were milk,
Waterfalls open tongues.
People gathered onshore,
Careful with each other,
Loved & bonded well
Like clusters of campions.
From “The Sixty-Four” best poets of 2018, Black Mountain Press
*Second Place Poet – Paul Brooke*
Paul Brooke, our second place poet, has three full-length collections of photography and poetry including Light and Matter: Poems and Photographs of Iowa and Meditations on Egrets: Poems and Photographs of Sanibel Island. Sirens and Seriemas: Photographs and Poems of the Amazon and Pantanal was published by Brambleby Books of London, England. His latest book, Arm Wrestling at the Iowa State Fair, was released in 2018 from Finishing Line Press. Recently, he completed a residency in Iceland and a sabbatical in Brazil, where he worked on a new book entitled Panthera Onca: Jaguars of the Northern Pantanal. Brooke teaches Creative Writing and Literature at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa.