Hindsight

Some people make a point of giving the villains a chance to repent and be forgiven before defeating them. The narrator of this sonnet wasn’t given that offer.

Though it won't matter now, I've changed my mind.
On random towns, I'll no more force my will,
No more send out my troops to maim and kill.
Good reasons to were getting hard to find.

Fame, I have won; of fortune had my taste
— Enough to seek it by an honest path.
Power had me. I lived on its behalf,
My own regime's chief tool of laying waste.

From all of this, there's lessons I have learned.
What goods evil can buy, and at what price.
The measure of my virtue and my vice.
And that I won't escape what I have earned.

And still I feel, as I prepare to die,
A path that taught so much is worth a try.

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Not precisely an Evil Overlord, but Dr. Frankenstein has many successors:

A monster I shall make, of many parts;
I'll take my fear to fail, and my hope,
My anger at the needless social arts,
A vow that I'll no longer simply cope.

Beneath the dark and circling brows of storm,
I'll mix in words that waken it to kill.
In all of passion's fire, keep it warm,
And waiting for the lightning, hold it still.

And when the spark of life has bridged the gap,
Twixt earthly body and the airy soul,
I'll what I've wrought in mortal vessel wrap.

I've found for it a simple child's doll.
Who plays with this will see their life destroyed
— will live in fancies, of the truth devoid.

Victims of Time Travel

Ever wonder what happens to the people who weren’t born because
a change to the timeline was fixed?

I travelled back in time, to see the past.
I erred. And thus, I let the future change.
But, staying undefeated to the last,
To bring my future back, I did arrange.

But not without adventures long to tell;
And not without the aid of willing friends,
Who, knowing it would doom them full and well,
Did aid me in my timeline-changing ends.

And thus, when I returned I dug a grave,
And over it I set their names in stone.
To honour those who, more than I, were brave.
That lives now never lived won't end unknown.

Yet I have back the life I had before;
What is this thing I've lost forevermore?

The Pass

Upon this crag a vulture perched and watched
The pass be taken and the orcs pour through;
At such a place, where such a fight was botched,
The omens tell, evil will rise anew.

After the fight, the dead unburied lay;
To make them rise again would not be hard.
And where there's strife, demons aren't far away;
This is a place that should have had a guard.

I'll have my masons hew cliffs stained with blood,
To build a fort that's famed to never fall.
No lightning strike, nor earthquake, fire nor flood,
Will breach this gate within the mountain wall.

Had evil claimed this pass, things would go ill.
Be glad that I'm the one who had the will.

Cue Evil Laugh

This is hopefully a less (obviously) depressing Evil-Overlord sonnet. I need to try and post these a bit more regularly.

O World, I say, behold my great machine!
See that your tallest tower is made mine!
With this, I'm on the world-controlling scene;
With this, you'll see my every plan align.

It fires forth, at my command, a ray,
Refracted from the brightly-burning sun,
Which swiftly finds and easily burns away
Whatever I might wish to see undone.

I've named my threat; now let my price be known!
A million pounds of saffron, silk and gold,
An island ruled by me and me alone,
A vow to let me, undisturbed, grow old.

I know this is a price you'll never pay,
But it's distracted you this crucial day.

No Dishonour

This is dedicated to the Winged Monkeys from The Wizard of Oz, and to evil minions everywhere.

There was a time when, honour justly earned,
We swore our service to who saved our kind.
And, since a vow means little if it's spurned,
Made sure to swear an oath we knew would bind.

We trusted that one with the grace to save
Would also have the honour to rule well.
We never thought that power, they might crave,
Or that our oath of service, they might sell.

So now our curse, both punishment and sin,
Is that we shall not break the oath we swore.
If our commands have demons ushered in,
Then, with regret, we'll carry out the chore.

And thus a tribe whose honour was their name
A by-word for a thing of fear became.

For want of more story to post, here’s a poem.

Who lies before me now cannot be dead.
What I have loved, no other force can take!
I swear it now, upon your broken head,
I'll see to it that someday you will wake.

To distant lands I'll go, that I may learn
What moves the heart and what can make it still.
There'll be no art to which I will not turn,
For how could healing you be doing ill?

My love is strong. I will not fail nor change,
Until your eyes can open and meet mine.
Then finally our wedding we'll arrange,
And live a life that's of our own design.

I know the risks. To evil I may fall.
But for love such as ours, I'll risk it all.