brave & bold

there was a village in the east,
affluent, proud, full of peace,
known for its explorers, brave & bold

they journeyed across mountains tall,
through dark forests caves, behind waterfalls,
and filled the village coffers up with gold

they heard rumor then of a cave nearby,
a forgotten road they hadn’t tried,
that led to fortune in a mountain near the town

but they did not know the curse it gave
when they found the treasure in that wicked cave,
it trapped them there after the sun had gone down

they subsisted then on mushrooms found
(and what luck to find such bounty underground)
and then waited, hoped, for rescue to arrive

the torches died and, without the light,
the darkness came and stole their sight
and took too their sanity, by and by

in passing then came days and weeks
and months and years in that lightless keep;
a tomb, their loved ones thought, and assumed them dead

’til one winter’s eve a quake cracked the shell,
brought down a wall of their hellish cell,
but no men were freed, just monsters living in their stead

in night they fell upon sleeping homes,
traded fungal meals for flesh and bone,
’til every voice was silenced, young and old

and somewhere near a mountain, through a rotted gate,
in a dead town’s coffers, a treasure waits,
a prize for some explorers, brave & bold