Knight Out Of Time Poem by Rod M.Peters

Why, he often wonders, trying to explain
A sense of inadequacy
That continuously plagues him,
Did the white-robed Fates
Weaved a strange tale
Of unfulfilled promises
And made him toil away
In a heartless land
Ruled by hedonistic revellers
And ever-whirring machines,
Leaving him stranded,
A misplaced medieval soul
Bent on finding meaning
Within an often unimaginative
Role-playing game
By trying to imbue it with
Some purpose long-lost
And only to be rediscovered by
An act of chivalry and sworn fealty
To a just king and damsel and muse,
When all around him the soldiers of fortune
Reap the harvests of self-indulgence
And base delights
With wanton disregard for
Stale old notions of honour
And higher questing?
Is it the pinnacle of folly to invest
The hard-working enterpriser
Paying his earthly wages and
Building empires for his sons and daughters
With the mantle of a just king,
And revere the apple-pie baking woman
Donning a cheap stamped-linen apron
As damsel and muse
For whose sake he would gladly
Risk life and limb?
If indeed it is folly
Then he wishes nothing more than
To carry on a grey,
Spent knight, out of time,
Out of place, likely to be completely smitten
Any day now, only let his ultimate nemesis
Appear in the guise of a full-fledged
Fire-breathing dragon armoured
With impenetrable scales
Or a towering black knight,
Unyielding and devoid of compassion,
And not as a mundane modern caricature
Of the old foes:
A cancer giving bastard-demon
Or an faceless succubus stealing down
Under the skin
Bringing some auto-immune disease,
For no instrument of death
Lesser than a searing breath of beastly fire
Or mighty blow from a goblin-forged sword
Will ever befit a true knight.