Close to Halloween and All Souls' Day (A Poem About ToMI Chapter 4)

I have written this long poem that I'm about to send to the Telltale Community via e-mail. It is a poem about Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 4. Here's the poem that I have written. Hope you can read it and tell me if it's good enough. :)

CLOSE TO HALLOWEEN AND ALL SOULS' DAY:
A Poem of "Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 4" from the Perspective
of Video Game Players in 2009


By Deborah L. Kearns

Close to Halloween and All Souls' Day...
We had played in a game
about your new adventures,
Guybrush Ulysses Threepwood.
From Chapter 1 all the way
to Chapter 3,
your journey had led us:
the time you were infected
by the Pox of LeChuck;
your adventures throughout
Flotsam Island;
your encounter with
the maniacal Marquis De Singe
and the femme fatale
Pirate Hunter Morgan LeFlay;
the meeting with
the Vaycaylian merpeople;
your survival inside
the belly of the manatee;
the taming of the Leviathan;
the miraculous discovery
and healing powers of
La Esponja Grande that cured you;
your sudden betrayal by Morgan.

Close to Halloween and All Souls Day...
And then Chapter 4 arrived.
When we read a title
that still mentions your name:
"The Trial and Execution
of Guybrush Threepwood"...
we thought for certain
that you were going to die.
So in no time flat
we downloaded Chapter 4
onto our computers
and started playing
your continued adventures,
many filled with excitement
and expectation
at what was going to happen to you...
yet unaware that LucasArts
and Telltale Games
had a trick up their sleeves...
or two.

Close to Halloween and All Souls' Day...
We were now seeing
the beautiful bounty huntress
silently sailing
onward from
the Screaming Narwhal
back to Flotsam Island
with you in tow
and guilt
as she handed you over
to the mad doctor De Singe
for 30,000 pieces
of silver,
much like Judas Iscariot
handed the Lord Jesus
over to the chief priests
for 30 pieces of silver
in blood money.

And just like the chief priests,
a crowd of Flotsamites
were out for blood
as well,
as they arrested you
and brought you
before the court
of Flotsam Island
as Morgan and De Singe
watched helplessly,
and we were watching
helplessly along with them,
as we were wondering
what would happen to you.

Close to Halloween and All Souls' Day...
You were now in
what was known as
the "Trial of the Century-y-y-y",
as you were charged
with four heinous crimes
that the Right Honorable Judge
Wallace P. Grindstump
and the inhabitants
of Flotsam
accused you of.
With Smilin' Stan S. Stanman
as prosecutor and salesman
and you representing yourself
as both lawyer
and client,
you were now given a chance
to call a recess,
gather evidence,
prove your innocence,
and avoid a terrible fate
as the title suggested.

While you were out
gathering evidence
at Club 41,
De Singe was
pleading with Morgan
to try to bring you back
as a test subject
for some Jus de Vie experiment,
but she had been filled
with guilt over betraying you
after your friendship with her
had flourished,
and she refused to aid him.
He soon found out
that you had been cured
of the Pox of LeChuck
and were about to cure
your dear wife Elaine,
who had earlier been
infected by the Pox,
and he rendered you useless
as a test subject
as he stormed away
in search of your wife.

Close to Halloween and All Souls' Day...
With skill, luck, and evidence
you managed to clear
the four charges against you
one by one
back at the courthouse.
But just when you were ready
to get off the hook,
you ended up having been charged
with spreading the deadly
Pox of LeChuck,
and trying to prove
your innocence
was easier said than done.
Just then, your darling little
plunder bunny arrived,
but she was not the same
since you both had been hit
with the Pox weeks ago.
It seems that the Pox
had now taken control of her,
and when she assumed
that you had an affair
with Morgan,
your wife went out to Club 41
to exact revenge on her.

Close to Halloween and All Souls' Day...
And what an odd, spooky feeling
in Club 41
when Ladies' Night looked similar
to a Halloween party,
decorated with skull candles
on tables...
except that this Halloween party
was a swordfight
with Elaine Marley-Threepwood
and Morgan LeFlay.
Somehow you managed
to steer clear of the swordfight,
stick a voodoo summons
that you had onto a dartboard,
and lure Elaine into
getting the summons
so she could be sent back
to the Flotsam Island Courthouse.

Close to Halloween and All Souls' Day...
Back at the courthouse,
after a lengthy questioning
with your wife,
you were demonstrating the efforts
of the legendary sea sponge
and attempted to rub
the sponge on her face,
hoping that it would
absorb the Pox and cure her.
But then you discovered
that the sponge's power
was not enough
to cure her of the Pox.
And very soon
the Pox-infected honorable judge
was starting to impose
a death sentence on you,
and we were all
holding our breath
as you put both your hands
on your neck
in fear of the gallows,
and a thought came to you
as it did to all of us:
"I guess this is it!"
...Or was it?

Close to Halloween and All Souls' Day...
And then LeChuck arrived.
We all knew that he was not
the same Zombie Pirate he had been,
as we all thought he became
a good natured human pirate
when your plans to destroy him
had been botched up
by stabbing him
with the Cutlass of Kaflu
and causing him to create
an outbreak of the Voodoo Pox
that had infected you and your wife
and everyone else across
the entire Gulf of Melange.
With a solemn truth
he explained the whole mess
and concluded that you were not
the source of the Pox.
And then he started explaining
that the Voodoo Lady
was behind the plot
of his releasing the Pox
by manipulating his every action
along with your actions
through the years.
With LeChuck and the Voodoo Lady
jailed for manipulative plots
and your wife
taking off somewhere,
you were free to find a way
to cure Elaine
and everyone else of the Pox,
and we were glad
that you had avoided
a predetermined fate
that the chapter title suggested,
all thinking that everything
was going to be all right
in the end...
or was it?

Close to Halloween and All Souls' Day...
Just when you were on your way
to enlargen the legendary
Esponja Grande
with the Feast for the Senses menu
the Voodoo Lady had given you,
you noticed a distressed
Marquis De Singe
running away
from his laboratorium,
and, noticing that
something was wrong,
you went in to investigate.
There, you found the lab
in a complete, utter mess,
and discovered Morgan LeFlay
lying there terribly wounded
with her Blade of Dragotta
in her chest.
She told you that she tried
to rescue your Pox-infected hand
she had cut off
in her attempt
to make amends with you...
and then something had
happened to her.
In her very short breaths
she mumbled something to you
in your ear...
you just didn't know what...
and then she died in your arms.

Afterwards, you felt
deeply grieved at her death
that hit us very hard,
and after positioning her body
in a sad, beautiful fashion,
you looked up from the balcony
in the beautiful night sky
and muttered in a deep snarl
of anger:
"De Singe!"
And then you walked away,
yet never realizing
that the man who murdered
the bounty huntress
was not the mad doctor De Singe
as you had thought,
but rather the man
who saved you from the gallows...
the man who waited
for your every effort
to enlarge La Esponja Grande...
the man who carefully waited
for an opportunity
to set up a trap
while in jail...
the man who would soon
take your life.

Close to Halloween and All Souls' Day...
With the five senses fed
to the legendary sea sponge,
you made a long, hard trek
to the Flotsam Island Jungle
where the Vaycaylian
Wind Control Device
and the final sense course
had been located.
Unfortunately, this was
no easy task,
for the mad doctor entrapped you
and your Pox-infected wife
in clamshell traps.

He then told you
that he believed that
the Pox of LeChuck
that you once had on your hand
would be the ingredient in the form
of the "Threepwood Strain
of the Pox"
for some youth serum called
the "Jus de Vie"
to keep him young
and alive forever.
He also added that since
Elaine had the pox,
he would plan to use
the Wind Control Device
to pulverize her
and scatter her pieces
around the Caribbean
in hopes that her Pox
would infect everyone
and give him an infinite supply
of the Jus de Vie
to make a fortune in
selling it to others
and to keep himself young
and alive forever.

In his attempt
to sedate your wife
who was fighting back
against him,
you foiled his mad plans
by having the fireflies
and the moths
target the one source
for his mad powers
of the Jus de Vie:
the turban that was powered
by your poxed hand.
With the turban destroyed
and your hand released,
the mad doctor De Singe
became weaker than ever,
and made a mad goose chase
for your hand
by following it into
the wind control device,
where it pushed him inside
with a scream
and turned on the device,
pulverizing him and
scattering his pieces
across the Caribbean
and out of sight.

Close to Halloween and All Souls' Day...
With the sponge back in your grasp,
you gave it the final sense
by tossing it into
the wind control device.
After a few seconds,
La Esponja became Grande again,
and the power of its
dazzling aura
surrounded the entire
Gulf of Melange
as it absorbed all the Pox out
of Elaine and everyone else.
With a sigh of relief
you both smiled at each other...
and then you wondered
if you were ever going to get out
of the clamshell traps,
but at least we all knew
that everything was going
to be okay
and maybe have a happy ending
to Chapter 4...
or so we thought.

Close to Halloween and All Souls' Day...
And then along came LeChuck.
With the Merfolk key
that he had made with your help,
he freed both you and your wife
from the clamshell traps,
but then we suddenly noticed
that he had a Cutlass of Kaflu
in his hand...
And then he started catching you
and many of us off-guard
when he told you
that getting out of jail
was "the only way
to win Elaine's hand
in unholy matrimony."
You were getting confused
for a second...
and then he made an ambush
using these two words
that he had learned from you:
"Unholy THIS!"

And then he thrust his cutlass
into your chest,
impaling you, piercing you
so deep, so close
to your very heart...
and we all became
as shocked as Elaine
and felt as though
we had been stabbed
in our hearts by the same sword.
And then, before we knew it,
he unexpectedly flung you
like a rag doll
onto an encased wind idol
in such a violent way,
knocking you out unconscious
and leaving us reeling
our heads in shock
and screaming out in
the same manner as your wife,
calling out your name:
"GUYBRUSH!!!"
And then we quickly realized
that everything was not going
as well as we had hoped...
that the title of Chapter 4
was about to be fulfilled...
that this was not going
to be a happy ending.

Close to Halloween and All Souls' Day...
And now we were watching helplessly
as she ran up to your side
in her desperate attempt
to revive you,
to comfort you,
to console you,
to soothe you...
holding you in her loving arms
as you were slowly dying
in her gentle caress,
becoming lost in her warm embrace,
and pouring crimson regret,
betrayal, and anger.
And as LeChuck discussed his plans
for La Esponja Grande,
and how he double-crossed you both
after acting friendly all along,
she still refused his advances
of making her his demon bride
by telling him to "go to hell".
Nevertheless, he decided to
do this the hard way
by coming closer
to the legendary sponge
and gaining his
voodoo powers back.
And then the unthinkable happened...

Though you tried to stay alive,
your body started to shiver,
to give in,
to succumb to your
terrible stab wounds.
Your heartbeat was becoming
fainter and fainter,
your vision was fading fast,
it was becoming harder
and harder to breathe,
you were losing
your will to live,
and then you weren't afraid
of dying anymore.
In your final tender moments,
you spoke to a grieving Elaine
using your final words
about LeChuck:
"Kick his two-faced butt
for me..."
And then she accepted
the promise with:
"From Mêlée to Monkey
and all the islands
in between, my love."
And as she was on the verge
of tears,
she shared a passionate kiss
with you before
you both looked at LeChuck,
now back as a zombie pirate,
as he said,
"Aren't you dead yet?
I've got wedding plans to make!"
Unfortunately, that was
the last thing you heard,
as you took one last
look at him
before getting your last gaze
fixed on your wife...
and then your heart
stopped beating...
one final, silent gasp...
and then your body slumped
down to the ground
as you breathed your last
in the arms of
the angelic Elaine,
embraced the cold,
gentle caress of
the eternal slumber of death...
and then left her,
and many of us,
in tears.

Close to Halloween and All Souls' Day...
And then we felt as though
All Souls' Day came too early,
as you and Morgan LeFlay
were on the list of the souls
who had gone too soon.
And yet this was not the end
of your adventures.
Little did we know that in
the upcoming Chapter 5,
in over a month or so,
you would end up in the Crossroads
of the afterlife,
where you would arise from the grave
as a spirit with a Shred of Life
and make your journey there
before finding a way to return
to the world of the living,
unite in spirit form
with your own zombie body,
shrink La Esponja Grande,
save your wife Elaine,
and stop the villainous LeChuck
once and for all...
before returning to life
and reuniting with Elaine
in your renewed body
in a glorious resurrection.

Close to Halloween and All Souls' Day...
Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 4
was done...
and yet Chapter 5
had already just begun.

Comments

  • edited October 2010
    Woah! That was longer than I was expecting! I did like it though. I don't really know much about poetry so my advice is probably fairly worthless, but I thought in this part:
    Debbie82 wrote: »
    Close to Halloween and All Souls' Day...
    And then along came LeChuck...
    again.
    With the Merfolk key
    that he had made with your help,
    he freed both you and your wife
    from the clamshell traps...

    The word 'again' took me away from the rhythm I had gotten into with it. I don't think you need it there at all IMO.

    Otherwise, the rhythm flowed quite well for me and I did feel compelled to read it all.

    P.S In the part where you say the heartbeat gets fainter and fainter, you spelt the first 'fainter' wrong. I didn't know if this mattered to you so I thought I'd point it out anyway.;)
  • edited October 2010
    jeeno0142 wrote: »
    Woah! That was longer than I was expecting! I did like it though. I don't really know much about poetry so my advice is probably fairly worthless, but I thought in this part:



    The word 'again' took me away from the rhythm I had gotten into with it. I don't think you need it there at all IMO.

    Otherwise, the rhythm flowed quite well for me and I did feel compelled to read it all.

    P.S In the part where you say the heartbeat gets fainter and fainter, you spelt the first 'fainter' wrong. I didn't know if this mattered to you so I thought I'd point it out anyway.;)

    Thanks. I corrected that, then removed the word "again" and added a few more words of text. This should be more likable now.
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