The Rusted Knight: Ten Poems of a Poor Lover (Poetry & Medium Book 1)
**Chapter 1**: *The First Poem — The Rusted Shield*
He wrote: *“My armor is thin, but my heart is thick with your name.”*
**Chapter 2**: *The Second Poem — The Silent Horse*
*“My horse knows the way to your window, not to the war.”*
**Chapter 3**: *The Third Poem — The Moon’s Confession*
*“The moon is poor like me, yet you love its light.”*
**Chapter 4**: *The Fourth Poem — The Invisible Crown*
*“I never wore a crown, but you made me a king of a single glance.”*
**Chapter 5**: *The Fifth Poem — The Well of Echoes*
*“Every word I never said lives in this well. Listen.”*
**Chapter 6**: *The Sixth Poem — The Thread of Medium*
*“You are not too hot, not too cold — you are the exact temperature of home.”*
**Chapter 7**: *The Seventh Poem — The Dance of the Poor*
*“Let me dance with you in rags. Velvet lies. Rags remember.”*
**Chapter 8**: *The Eighth Poem — The Secret Wedding*
*“We are already married in a place no rich man can enter.”*
**Chapter 9**: *The Ninth Poem — The Voice Behind the Curtain*
*“If I must hide, I will hide inside my love for you.”*
**Chapter 10**: *The Tenth Poem — The Fire of the Fired*
*“They will burn me away. But ashes still spell your name.”*
Rich Partner read the poems. His eyes glittered with greed. “Perfect. Tonight, you will sing them. But you will hide behind the throne room’s tapestry. I will move my lips. You will sing. And she will think it is me.”
That night, the court gathered. Torches flickered. Princess Medium sat on her silver chair, bored and sad. Rich Partner stood before her. Behind the heavy curtain, Poetry began to sing in a low, trembling voice.
Rich Partner moved his mouth carefully — too carefully. His lips were like a puppet’s. But the voice… the voice was fire and rain together.
Princess Medium closed her eyes. Then opened them.
“That voice,” she whispered. “That is not the voice of a rich man. That is the voice of a man who has nothing but love.”
She rose slowly. She walked toward the curtain. Rich Partner froze. The guards reached for their swords, but Medium raised her hand.
She pulled the curtain aside.
There stood Poetry — thin, poor, trembling, still singing the tenth poem.
*“They will burn me away. But ashes still spell your name.”*
She hugged him. In front of everyone. In front of the king, the prince, the court.
“You,” she said. “Only you.”
Rich Partner left in rage. The king was confused. But then **Manager** — Poetry’s own father — stepped forward. Manager was the king’s chief overseer, a cold man who valued order and coin. He hated Poetry’s dreams.
“You have shamed this house,” Manager said. “You will be fired. Not once. But in ten chapters of poems — each poem a dismissal.”
And so Manager recited:
1. *Fired for loving without gold.*
2. *Fired for singing without permission.*
3. *Fired for being poorer than your voice.*
4. *Fired for making a princess choose rags.*
5. *Fired for hiding behind curtains of truth.*
6. *Fired for believing love is enough.*
7. *Fired for embarrassing the system.*
8. *Fired for not becoming rich.*
9. *Fired for making Medium feel.*
10. *Fired for being Poetry.*
But as Poetry walked out of the hall, Medium took his hand. She walked with him.
“Where will you go?” asked the king.
“To a small cottage,” she said. “Where we will have no gold — but ten poems on the wall, and a love that cannot be fired.”
And they lived, not richly, but truly.
The End.
## Chapter 1: The First Poem — The Rusted Shield
**I. The Naming of the Knight**
They called me Poetry, not for verses penned,
But for the shape my silence took at night —
A bent man walking where the road would end,
Whose only wealth was hunger for the light.
My horse had ribs like ladders, my sword a ghost,
My shield a disk of iron eaten red.
The other knights drank wine and raised a toast
To battles won. I raised a word instead.
**II. The Vision of Medium**
She came on Tuesday when the rain was thin,
A princess made of balance, not of fire —
Her name was Medium, held somewhere within
The place where doubt and faith both expire.
She wore no crown that dazzled. Just a band
Of silver touched with fingerprints of use.
She did not wave. She held out one bare hand.
I dropped my rusted shield into the goose-
Filled courtyard pond. The splash was my first vow.
She smiled. The kingdom turned to water then.
I thought: *A poor man has no right to bow*
*Before a princess.* But I bowed. Amen.
**III. The Rusted Shield Speaks**
My shield said nothing — metal cannot talk.
But rust is language. Every orange stain
Was a small war I lost on some rough walk,
A bridge I crossed and could not cross again.
I leaned it by the stable door at dusk.
The groom said, “Throw that thing into the fire.”
But Medium walked past, and in the musk
Of wet hay and October, something higher
Moved through her eyes. She touched the ruined edge.
“This shield,” she said, “has loved. It did not win.
That is the same thing as a wedding pledge
To anyone who knows where love begins.”
**IV. The Poor Man’s Arithmetic**
What does a poor knight count? Not gold, not land.
He counts the seconds she looks left, not right.
He counts the steps between her chair and hand.
He counts the colors of her dress at night —
Tonight was blue like river after rain,
Tomorrow gray like doves against a cloud.
He adds the times she almost said his name,
Subtracts the wall of courtiers, proud and loud.
The sum is always zero. Zero is
The number of his horses, coins, and lands.
But zero, when arranged like two loose keys,
Can open any lock where hope still stands.
**V. The First Poem, Written on a Leather Strap**
*My armor is thin, but my heart is thick with your name.*
*Rust is my heraldry. Silence is my claim.*
*I fought no dragon. I slew no enemy king.*
*But I carried your shadow home in a broken sling.*
*Take me as I am — a shield that cannot protect,*
*But a shield that remembered where you placed your neck*
*When you leaned down once to tie your silver shoe.*
*My heart is thick with you. My armor thin with you.*
**VI. The King’s Distant Laughter**
The king did not know. No king ever knows.
He sat on a chair of antlers and old gold,
Watching his daughter smell a winter rose.
He thought: *She will be married. I am old.*
He did not see the knight behind the well,
Scraping a poem into a piece of bark.
He did not hear the story the rust could tell —
That love begins the moment light turns dark.
The courtiers laughed at Poetry’s torn cloak.
The jester made a joke about his horse.
But Medium, inside the royal smoke,
Moved her hand in circles. No one saw, of course.
**VII. The Promise Before the Rich Prince Came**
Before Rich Partner’s camels crossed the hill,
Before the ten poems were a bleeding task,
Poetry knelt by the rusted shield, quite still.
“You were my father’s,” whispered he. “Now ask —
Ask me to be worthy of one glance.
Ask me to turn my poverty to art.”
The shield said nothing. That was the only chance
A poor man needed. He placed it on his heart.
Then Medium passed again. She did not speak.
She dropped a single acorn by his boot.
He picked it up. His fingers felt so weak.
He planted it inside a broken lute.
**VIII. The Closing Stanza of Chapter One**
So begins the story of the poor knight Poetry,
Whose shield was rust, whose horse was air and bone,
Who loved a princess named Medium — truly,
And had no wealth to offer but his own
Ten fingers carving verses into walls,
Ten toes that walked through mud to see her comb
Her hair by candlelight in secret halls.
The rich prince came. The father made his foam
Of anger. But before the fall, the fire,
The ten dismissals, the hiding and the song —
There was a rusted shield and one desire:
*To love where loving had no right to belong.*
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