Anagnorisis

Nobody ever accused him of pride,
That was a crime he would always reject.
Wisdom and honor and kindness his guide,
He was the king and demanded respect.

Mother and father were left long ago,
He found his kingdom and his widowed bride.
He bested the sphinx and his glory, it grows.
“Why do the gods now send worry?” he cried.

Famine now held his great land in its grip.
Prophecies, oracles, wise men would sing -
They might not know why but they let this one slip:
Find the old murderer of the old king.

Now he knew all and that he was the one,
He the foul murderer and the poor son,
Hubris caused this and his wife-mother dies
Oedipus drives both the stakes through his eyes.


Prompt: Pride

Quatrieme de Juillete

La Marseillaise,
That was the anthem he sang.
France then the world he called home.
Bayous and swamps and the people down there -
The Acadians had him now.


He was born on the fourth of July.
The girl who bothered to care,
Who saw a man she'd like to know,
Had to make him see the rocket's red glare.
The flash and the noise,
The lights in the night
Were to him something new and just right.


America
Was not yet his home.
He thought it too soon for just that.
In all the sound and the fury
Of that peaceful night,

Alain came to see

That he was home wherever he went

So long as he could see the fireworks all around him.

This was in response to the prompt "Fourth of July" on Good Reads.