Prompt: Do you remember your favorite book from childhood?

An Ode to the Isle of Shattered Dreams,
Where innocence, a fragile bloom, redeems
Its fading light to shadows, stark and vast,
Upon the shores where savagery was cast.

Oh, Piggy, with your spectacles askew,
A beacon dim of logic, clear and true,
Your voice unheard amidst the rising roar,
Of primal urges on that sun-scorched shore.

And Ralph, the leader, with his conch held high,
A fragile symbol ‘neath a searing sky,
Of order’s faint and desperate, clinging hold,
Against the chaos, brazen, fierce, and bold.

Yet Jack, the hunter, painted, dark, and wild,
His spirit freed, by savage impulse beguiled,
He lured the boys to follow in his train,
And dance with madness, again and again.

The beast within, a whisper and a dread,
Not monstrous form, but evil in the head.
A fear projected, born of darkest night,
That turned young hearts to instruments of blight.

The fire, once a hope, a rescue’s plea,
Became a weapon, set the forest free
To burn and rage, a mirror to their souls,
Devoured by instinct, losing all controls.

No adults came to guide them, lost and lone,
Their paradise, a desolate, wild zone.
A playground turned to battleground of strife,
Where human nature fought for death, not life.

Lord of the Flies, a mirror stark and plain,
Reflecting darkness, etched in human stain.
A chilling truth, that whispers in the breeze,
Of paradise corrupted, brought to its knees.
A timeless warning, resonating deep,
Of shadows lurking while the conscious sleep.

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© Richard J Kirk, writing as Joseph R Mason – 2025. If you want to know why, see: https://josephmasonauthor.com/about/ 

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