dactyls and spondees and iambs. Oh my!

I was talking to my dad through Skype earlier telling him how all my childhood poems were inspired by Ovid and Virgil and Horace. And how I was fascinated by the iambic hexameter and had wanted to use it in a poem of my own.

So he said: Oh, so you know all about dactyls and spondees. I froze for a full second: I do?

Well, I'm sure I had learnt it back at school, but now I remember that it was during English class and not Latin that I learnt poetry structure. And it was the iambic pentameter that I did use in the poem below, clearly inspired by Milton.

Ovid's unhappy exile to Tomis on the Black Sea probably set the mood as well -- I was holed up in boarding school for five long years. It felt like an orphanage.

first
Promises fantasized to spawn idle Hope
have incensed my Mind with burning Thoughts of
Life disillusioned . this odious Anguish
in my Soul exasperates Salvation
to reject my State as Oblivion
scorned my Insanity . I have Nothing
left to wish for , no Language to describe
the Emptiness Despair etches in me —
I have lived through it all again before
only to languish for not talking more.
second
but Change can be painful as Change can be
quick . no Pleasure , I never did seek .
then as suddenly as it withdrew with
ruinous Intent , the dark demons of
Fury and Folly ferret out the lost
Hope from my Shell , then to battle at my
Conscience scarred by those that sought endlessness —
always I imagined better luck from
Fate ; yet Death outlives the strongest of men
even to reap its own requisites then .
third
once and again I attempt the monstrous
courage thwarting Impediment ; always
failing , for my brief Existence never
is enough to apprehend the glories
Life offers — my Fiends internal had snatched .
sought elusive Happiness as dwindling
Elation the Wretched pitches further
into Darkness clutching . how am I then
able ; and is it as obvious as all this
ceaseless struggle against the blind Abyss ?
fourth
but Enduance Umbrage equals since still
I defiant stand . yet when the Structures
imprisoning erected by Virtue and
Ethic to confound my mortal Impulse
collapse ; then shall Passion surge to wildly
repossess this vacillating Vessel ,
overcoming finally all Doubts and
decisions . hence my twofold Demons
need a multitude and more of ill-bent
Cunning if to siege they profess intent .
fifth
none compare to my Remissness ; every
shred and scourge of Time allows for me with
accurst recurrence to stray into the
blinding Light of howev’r faint Despair . to
blame the Heavens for what faint astral Sight
more often obscure I choose to ignore ,
finding my path by the Blind exhorted . my
Eyes open wide when darkness fades and then
the Shadows take substance to surround me .
Meaning gives to Reason Reality —
sixth
but so insignificant a Vision
of inane if unknown frailties of Mind
and when all at once Doubts crippling arise ,
I on my own and alone again what
with no sense of Loss despite this Terror
absolute that all my efforts nothing
have gained . blinded was I by some selfish
secret seeking small and sour Illusions
that might my hurtful Horrors heal anew ,
instead I stand and deaf to words untrue .