Rust and Rubbish

Another fan poem! I'm stretching my rhyming muscles, bit by bit.

I try to keep these ambiguous, as you can see; gives them more of a universal feeling. I mean, some of the stanzas in here could be about anyone, really. My objective here is to write not just to express fandom, but to express emotions, in a poem which just happens to be inspired by a video game. (And of course, to have fun with rhymes, and to practice, ever practice, for the day when I hope to do something with my love of rhyming.)

My thanks to , who first suggested Clanker as the perfect subject for my next morbid children's poem, and he was right.

My thanks also to Andrew Bird. I must admit this meter is taken from his addictive and wonderful new song "Not a Robot, But a Ghost." I was originally working with a much more difficult meter, because the first stanza came to me instantly and was great, but I couldn't keep it up for long:

Who is that fearsome beast
We see a-sulking there beneath
The tepid water, snapping rusty jaws
And gnashing crusty teeth?

But Andrew's song was in my head; it gave me the meter and also the "core" I kept using, because that's a powerful word; it connotes both the depths of your body and soul...

I hear the clockwork in your core,
Time strips the gears till you forget what they were for.
I push the numbers through your pores,
I crack the codes, I crack the codes and end the war.

Enjoy!
Clanker (c) Rareware