Ballad of the Video-Game Hero
I rode in a mine cart, back home from the land
Of my favorite video game,
Through the pixelized prairie and vast seas of sand,
Over rivers of lava and flame.
The hero sat there in the rickety cart
Staring off into pixel-sky space,
Much older than on the game cartridge’s art,
With tears on his wide, wrinkled face.
“I’m leaving and never returning,” he said.
“Come listen and hear my sad story.
The princess and I, we hoped someday to wed,
Way back in the days of my glory.
“The dragon would kidnap the princess, then I
Would run through an obstacle course
To his minions’ dark castles in mountains up high
And take back their strongholds by force.
“My princess was in the last castle I’d raid;
I always found treasures to haul.
The Kingdom would welcome me with a parade
And a sumptuous banquet for all.
“But after some years, the dragon found ways
To undermine me and my quest.
He gave up the tactic of ‘pillage and raze’—
Bribed the people with treasure-filled chests!
“My princess then fell for the dragon’s top minion;
The Kingdom surrendered the war
And exiled me out of the dragon’s dominion—
They don’t want to be saved anymore!”
We came to my world, and we sealed up the gate
To the land of his video game.
My world is secured from his land’s tragic fate,
But I’m worried for us just the same.
For evil has bribed all the people here, too,
With shiny new gadgets galore.
No more do they care for what’s good and what’s true—
They don’t want to be saved anymore!
The Adventures of Verb
At six, I had a dictionary
Where I would meet a man named Verb,
Superb and quite extraordinary.
In every definition’s blurb,
Right at the finish, did while doing,
For example: “Verb chewed, chewing.”
In my mind, I saw Verb clearly,
With brown hair, mustache, thin, and tall.
“Verb smiled, smiling” sincerely
And “Verb told, telling” me of all
That “Verb did, doing” through his days
Within a sentence or a phrase.
“Verb ran, running,” “Verb swam, swimming,”
“Verb vaulted, vaulting,” “Verb gave, giving,”
“Verb bought, buying,” “Verb trimmed, trimming,”
“Verb flew, flying,” “Verb lived, living,”
One day I came real close to crying:
The day I read that “Verb died, dying.”
I looked up “verb,” and then I knew,
It’s not a man who lived and died;
It’s just a word that means to do.
Relieved, I put the book aside
And ran outside, where I “played, playing”
The things Verb did that still “stayed, staying.”
“Ballad of the Video-Game Hero” and “The Adventures of Verb” were first published by The Society of Classical Poets.
Joshua C. Frank works in the field of statistics and lives near Austin, Texas. His poetry has also been published in The Society of Classical Poets, Snakeskin, Atop the Cliffs, and The Asahi Haikuist Network, and his short fiction has been published in Nanoism.
Sparks of Calliope 
Nice work, Joshua. I’ve seen your poetry at Society of Classical Poets so I knew I wanted to read these when they appeared in my email. I enjoyed these stories.
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Thank you, Alena. I’ve seen your poetry there as well and enjoy it.
Both of these poems are based on real things: “Ballad of the Video-Game Hero” was a dream I had ten years ago, and “The Adventures of Verb” was based on an actual children’s dictionary I had at the speaker’s age.
Nearly all my poems can be found by searching my name at the Society of Classical Poets website.
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