There Once Lived A Man (Prod. by Christopher Trosclair)

So I started talking with a member of this community (well, a member of the unofficial side to this community, at the very least [shakinbakin]) and we were sharing tracks from our own soundcloud streams. Ended up getting the idea that we could combine his musical abilities with my spoken word poetry.

Whilst we were working on a new piece together, he started to mess around with one of the old pieces that I’ve posted here before, “There Once Lived A Man” so thought I’d share it here again, this time with the new arrangement.

Like always, the poem is posted below to help those that have trouble understanding my accent.

There Once Lived a Man

There once lived a man,
He was strong, he had grace, he was battle-worn,
He should have done something of monumental significance,
Something to be remembered.
Prevented, though, not out of spite or maleficence, but by love.
The could’ve-been-king with his army of meanwhiles and never-weres,
Would’ve been so much but his will was never his own, it was hers.
She stole from him his drive, his motivation, his life.
Mandated his worthlessness,
Dictated his insignificance,
Where she could have breathed life she spoke death that withered his heart, his soul and his flesh.
He decayed until only his consciousness was left.
A string of strategically arranged words,
An abstract idea floating through a concrete world.

Demons run when a good man goes to war but the heavens cry when that war is with himself.
Depression is rage focussed inwards, egocentric, not directed at anybody else.
So these words, this idea, this man,
Waged battle after battle,
Fought in theatres, the scale of which never dreamed of.
Conquered his enemy repetitively while simultaneously constantly being defeated.
Thrust his sword into his foe by committing hara-kiri.
The wars and lessons taught in adolescence
Gave him the strength and knowledge he needed to deliver the final sentence.
The unthinkable,
The mortal sin,
The inconceivable that can never be forgiven.

There once lived a man that came to possess the two qualities required to see absolute truth,
He was brilliant and unloved.
But absolute truth is enough to dry up oceans and reduce mountains to dust.
There once lived a man that took not a leap of faith because the virtuosity of faith is fallacious, but a leap of trust,
There once lived a man who had had enough.