Post 1 - Omer Hamad

Once upon a Time There Was a Man

Mac Hammond

Once upon a time there was, there was a man

Who lived inside me wearing this cold armour,

The kind of knight of whom the ladies could be proud

And send with favours through unlikely forests

To fight infidels and other knights and ordinary dragons.

Once upon a time he galloped over deep green moats

On bridges princes had let down in friendship

And sat at board the honoured guest of kings

Talking like a man who knew the world by heart.

In every list he fought, the trumpets on the parapets,

The drums, declared his mastery, the art of arms;

His horse, the household word of every villager,

Was silver-shod and, some said, winged.

Once upon a time, expecting no adventure

In the forest everybody knows, at midnight,

He saw a mountain rise beneath the moon.

An incredible beast? With an eye of fire?

He silently dismounted, drew his famous sword

And hid behind the heavy trees and shrubs to see

If what he thought he saw was real. He fled

And the giant eye of the moon pursues him still.

The theme of this poem is that the way we see ourselves can be altered through events that we did not see coming. Inside, the author viewed himself as a knight in armour, but once unfamiliar events began taking place, he acted contrary to his self perception.This poem is universal, but I see it as insightful. It gives us insight into the author’s mind and problems. I chose this poem because of its unique ending. It begins as a “knight in shining armour” poem, but ends with quite an interesting note; The poem, to me, is something that I find intriguing, and I would be happy to write a paper on it.

Hammond, Mac. "Once upon a Time There Was a Man." Poetry 180. Ohio State University Press, 1 Jan. 1992. Web. 11 Sept. 2014. <http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/153.html>.