#eXemplum: Greed #atozchallenge

There once was a man in his ivory tower
For whom ruling the world gave ultimate power

Laws of the land, he felt no need to abide
Bombing other countries, he did with utmost pride

He made deals with corporates and gave jobs to the boys
Treating lives of downtrodden as if they were toys

He lived a life of luxury with mansions a-few
Each of his places having a million-dollar view

He ran his country with no acknowledgement of fact
Fairness and empathy were qualities he lacked

His greed for power led him to make up false news
His position as leader he continued to abuse

The rest of the world could finally take no more
Together they joined forces, and started a war

Through gunfire and bombs, nuclear weapons and gas
They finally got him but also innocents en masse

(c) Sanch Vee @ Sanch Writes (28 April 2017)

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In spite of my hardest efforts, I was unable to find a poetry form starting with the letter ‘X’. So I tried to extend this by looking for forms with an ‘EX’. Through my searches, I finally found Exemplum. However, it is not a poetic form but rather, is a literary term. I adapted it to make it into a poetry form. An Exemplum is just Latin for ‘example’. It’s an example, story, or anecdote used to demonstrate a point. When writing a moral exemplum {which is what I’ve done}, a writer must choose a moral theme, think about the consequences of that theme and then write the poem or story with a beginning, middle and end. The beginning introduces the character or settings, the middle shows the moral conflict and the end must show the consequences of that conflict. 

This has been written for the 2017 A to Z Challenge