Heroes (In Praise of Fantasy)

(This is in response to a review of "Game of Thrones" by Ginia Bellafonte, where she implies only boys like fantasy stories. Fantasy is one of my best beloved genres. I was rather irritated.)


So many heroes with swords in my head,
Crashing and bashing and waking the dead,
Heroic in leather, heroic in silk,
In plate and in chain and in stuff of that ilk,
Sigurd the brave, Cuchulain so fair,
Brian Boru boldly alone standing there,
Ulysses the cunning, Achilles the strong --
With heroes like these, how can any go wrong?
See them stand, see them howl--Beowulf joins the fight,
Grendal's bane saving Hrothgar in his armor so bright.
There's Roland, near forgotten, with his long sounding horn,
Lancelot alone looking lost and forlorn,
Still they come, still they come, with their swords shining bright,
Come to rescue the weak, or just to have a fight,
Xena and Sonja, women of steel
come hither to fight or to just cut a deal,
Conan and Kull, nearly twins in their might,
The Eternal Champion fighting well through the night,
Tempus and Elric and the Gray Mouser so bold,
With Fafhrd to help him steal all my gold,
Samurai heroes with swords shiny and bright,
Shadow warriors spinning red dreams through my line of sight.
The noise of them clashing, the sounds of each clash
Go echoing on as they hit and they bash.
Bring it on, bring it on, with bravado so bold -
My favorite stories! You'll never grow old.