literature

SHREDS OF DRESSROSA (One Piece poem)

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(From) the spoiled son of self-proclaimed gods
                  the kid who fled from his own flesh and blood
the sole survivor of a white storm of greed
                  the beasty fiery teen grown-up in the streets;
one peaceful girl who was pushed to fight
                  two cold-hearted sisters shaped by their past life
an abandoned baby deemed a useless being
                  and the baby-man remembering his lost family;
the once monster-toddler now in a death squad
                  the former slave's tears hidden by a glad facade
who met the young rebel of his noble origins ashamed
                  and hunted by his brother's red undying flames;
(to) the one dreaming to be the King of the Pirates.


Facets, fragments, different points of view
against the same harsh reality of the world;
shattered dreams, and newly-emerging ones
smoke and fire, and ashes and cries and wrath...
                  The false king locks all the players inside a cage
                  —for others and himself—and the game starts.

Ambitions clash,
                  memories resurface.


Crazy yet craved days wandering half-frozen under the moonlight,
while leaving footprints in the icy snow and in the withering white
heart that started to beat again thanks to calm tears and silent smiles;
new purpose declared—I love you—changing the fate of a child
but further twisting the tangled strings of the betrayed man's mind...

                  Once a boy who wished to be forgotten—a vengeful killer
                  saved by a merciful king—unworthy, he still chose to live;
                  his daughter couldn't protect for long, but he shall return
                  once the eternal girl's incantation is vanished, broken by
                  the bravery of the bold coward who resolved not to run...

A kid seeking freedom more than anything else, so wise
he lived among the most miserable to erase any prejudice
and see things with his own wide-open eyes; a happy child
running through woods and streets—his siblings beside him
—today a leader close to the girl who learned to really smile...

                  A brat raised among hatred and trash to be a lonely lord
                  by people who lost their humanity for the twists of fate;
                  now a terrible yet tormented tyrant, he proudly soared
                  but also gave up on hope upon triggering that first fact
                  —something he could not stitch back to its former shape.


Hostilities between different philosophies;
                  investigated and secret stories intertwine.


And so fights the hearts-clad ghost from Flevance
in behalf of that selfless and tall and clumsy man
who slowly lifted him out of a bleached pit by doing
everything to save him—a stranger teen—proving
that you can be strong even while quietly dying...

                  Next to him an ally, another storm-bringer on whom he bet;
                  an ambitious lad who learnt to weep and fall on his knees
                  but who shall stand up again and again and again and yet
                  again for his nakama's sake, as long as he'll be alive, 'cause he
                  knows how it is to lose loved ones before incredulous eyes.


A whirlwind of feathers flows within the time and space of one day
                  (from a past made of manipulations, influences, and bad choices
                  to a future that people will forge with their own imperfect hands)

...until the end of the Game.
MY ONE PIECE LITERATURE DEVIATIONS (more here):
Feathered Dragon (One Piece, Doflamingo poem)Born among dragons
to suffer amid men
which were the odds
of surviving back then?
You never showed tears
concealed behind shades
yet you wept on that day
under their vengeful stares.
A helpless, frail body
you were but a child—
maybe nasty, misguided
but still an innocent life.
Yet they harmed and mocked—
their frustration and sadness
and pent-up hate for your kind
all misdirected at you—Why?
Why living like them, if people
are all the same? Why giving up
on power, if they harm and slay
and abuse as well? Why, Father?
Your Brother was weak—or so
you believed—he didn't protest
but accepted everything, while
a voice in you cried, "FIGHT BACK!"
A proud, strong will to always abide
a force within you to rise 'n shine
above all those fools who did dare
to make YOU shake and cry in pain.
"I won't die," you screamed, "whatever you do,
"I will survive and find the very last one of you!"

And then you would kill them, they d
All is Lost (OP, post-Dressrosa Doflamingo poem)A silent prison is all he has left, but silence is the last thing he wants.
    Bound in seastone chains, he can't even move, and the pain in his chest is driving him insane.
He doesn't remember if they gave him first aid, and keeps shifting in and out of consciousness while dreading the moment lights will be turned on.
    Strings have fallen—everything has fallen—and only his ambition is keeping him from falling apart, too.
He's naked, now. Bare eyes blinking tiredly in the darkness, bare shoulders trembling against the cold floor, bare thoughts threatening to escape his lips.
    The shades the coat the smile the mocking remarks... They're all gone, pummelled away by the embodiment of "inherited will."
He has been defeated, and soon a justice not his own will come and claim his soul.
    Before his unshielded eyes, memories from a hellish past turn into visions: his father's bloodied head in his hands; soldiers from a
Silent Act (One Piece, Rocinante poem)Exiled from the sky where fake gods reside,
I played the part of the quiet, smaller child.
With my elder brother I struggled to survive:
we hid from people, nearly starved to death,
and when mother died I silently wept.
Then two years later my silence broke:
I also lost father, killed by my own blood.
I screamed in despair and then ran away,
was found by a man to whom I'm indebted.
I became a marine, as a pirate disguised,
to my brother I returned, there were wine ‘n smiles.
I was welcomed back, no questions were asked,
and in the spider's nest I acted quietly,
whilst my brother's shadow becoming
to stop the madness of my own blood
—because I too was a fallen dragoon,
but my own feathers were made of ash
instead of brother's glossy pink glass.
For a while I observed my brother's life:
he had a new family he seemed to like
and that made me recall that forgotten time
when we were a family albeit living in grime.
However back then I missed to see
what'd really ha
After the Fall (post-Dressrosa One Piece fanfic)Law woke up to a dull pain on his right shoulder. Suppressing a groan, he clasped it with his left hand and opened his eyes.
His head was still resting on the scabbard of his longsword as when he had fallen asleep, but thanks to his padded hat it didn't hurt.
Without moving, he looked around through half-lidded eyes. In the dim light, he recognised the small mill where they had been brought to hide from the marines.
Luffy was still sleeping; his crewmates were sprawled on the floor around his bed, and only Nico Robin was gracefully resting on a chair near the table. Their back against the wooden wall, Kyros and that idiot of Bellamy were snoring, too.
"Ouch!" Law hissed between his teeth as another burning pang assailed him, shooting through his right arm this time. The fact that he could feel it was a good sign, but he wondered if the powers of that dwarf, Manshelly, were enough for it to completely heal.
Maybe, I need antibiotics... He felt a bit feverish, but that wasn't what
CHAINS (One Piece Dressrosa fic, canon divergence)That child had been a slave, just like him.
They had been tortured, exploited, even violated by the "deities" of Marijoa, as the Celestial Dragons called themselves.
And then, once those monsters had grown bored of them, they had been thrown away like trash in that forgotten island.
There, other former slaves lived, too—or better, survived. Their hearts had dried up, leaving only hate, and they all sought revenge.
A revenge that had seemed impossible until that very day...
CHAINS
"Observe them attentively," Trebol instructed his young underling. "They are a family of Celestial Dragons."
  The deformed man with a mellifluous voice was highly amused by the grievous sight of those former World Nobles: they were condemned already, but he wanted to see them suffer.
  However, Vergo remained impassible behind his dark shades. He didn't recoil even as the three people, one man and two children around his age, started to be merciless beaten by the angry mob.
Trebo
Behind the Mask (post-Dressrosa One Piece AT fic)Rocinante didn't want to see him. Not after what he'd done to the people of Dressrosa—and especially not after what he'd done to Law.
Yet, it was his duty to take him into custody. That was an obligation he had put upon himself to begin with, so he couldn't really complain.
Now, it was time to even the score with the one whom he had once called brother.

First Act
The tall man's hands trembled slightly as he took off his large burgundy mask; it was decorated with a faux beard and long black feathers, and a frowning face appeared from behind it. A blue four-pointed mark was tattooed under the right eye of the man, and dark red lipstick painted a fake smile on his features.
Once a marine—and now a member of Cipher Pol Aigis Zero—the blond agent's name was Donquixote Rocinante, and he was the younger brother of the infamous Heavenly Yaksha.
After slackening his black tie a little, the CP-0 agent took a deep breath and looked at his feet.


I accept literature commissions, both fiction (creative writing) and non-fiction, please read this journal for more info: fav.me/d3okj0m .
I can write in English and Italian, and I can also do translations from and to both languages.

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Warning: albeit all vague, this poem and its artist's comment contain spoilers up to chapter 782 of the One Piece manga; I wrote the first draft of this piece just after reading that chapter, but kept refining it until just before the release of chapter 786.
Tumblr post.

Dressrosa is draining my sanity... did I already mention that I absolutely love this saga—and One Piece in general?  :heart:
This is my second poem based on this story arc, and my contribution for the fifth day of the Everything We Love About One Piece event on Tumblr. I couldn't put everything and everyone in it, but I tried my best to include as many of its characters and sub-plots as possible. Can you list all the ones I mentioned without looking at the tags?  :)

As for my previous poem (Feathered Dragon), I used free form again for this piece but I experimented even more, especially regarding its layout and punctuation (I took some liberties here, especially with commas, in order to achieve a certain rhythm).
If you can find any typo or error, or have any general suggestion to improve this poetry, feel free to comment. I didn't have this piece beta-read, so there could still be something to fix.  :faint:


A/N:
- without revealing too much to non One Piece readers, the "first fact" I mentioned in the poem refers to the very first person killed by Donquixote Doflamingo (the main villain of this saga);
- for the meaning of "Flevance", please read On Trafalgar Law's backstory (an article I wrote about Trafalgar Law, who is the co-protagonist of the Dressrosa saga next to Monkey D. Luffy);
- "nakama" is a Japanese word that implies a really strong bond with other people, and that can't be directly translated into English without using a circumlocution (it can mean close friends, companions, even family sometimes);
- I used a capital letter for "Game" in the last line of the poetry on purpose—I'll leave the meaning of that open to the interpretation of the readers.  ^^



P.S. Little typo fixed thanks to a friend on Pixiv: www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=33…. :meow:
© 2015 - 2024 MajorasMasks
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Zelda206's avatar
It perfectly captures how many individuals, and their dreams, took part in the pursuit for the One Piece and all other elements buried under it.