Tables and Iambic Pentameter

There I stood, looking down at my kitchen table with a deep stillness.  I had just spent the last thirty minutes taking the eight chaired monstrosity apart and hauling it out, piece by piece, to the now vacated garage.  The table surface was scratched from years of use and a small circular burn mark the size of a quarter marred the tan surface.   But it was time for a needed improvement.  There is a feeling that comes right before you start something big, anxiety builds, the slight fear of making a mistake, the understanding that time will need to be dedicated and the knowledge that when the stillness passes the work will truly begin.  

All of this rushes through my mind as I stare at the table top before me with a belt sander in one hand.  Various grains of sandpaper were still tucked in their shopping bags, beside cans of dark stain and polyurethane.  The moment of stillness passes, I lower the belt sander and the project begins. 

The reason this comes to mind, is that moment before the project begins and the anxiety that flutters just out of sight.  I get that feeling before any project, even writing.  There is a poem in the Rise of Rebellion.... well, for those of you that know poetry, it is more of a half-hearted attempt put into stanzas.  The poem was seriously lacking.  In my mind the poem is important, because it sets the main character on his mission and hints at things to come.  Despite this, the 'place marker' never changed with any revision and every time I read it my guts would cringe.  I wanted something with meter, wasn't sure which type, but I knew I wanted something. 

The last time I tried to use meter in a poem was in High School (Thanks Mr. Gentry) and I hated it.  Maybe hate isn't a strong enough term, detest, despise?  I tried for hours and hours and more hours to put some thoughts into Iambic Pentameter, but the finished product was so bad it made the paper it was written on give a death rattle.  I failed the project miserably and vowed never to use meter again. 

Years later, there I sat looking at the story and knowing I would have to break that vow.  I researched iambic, dactyls and every other type of metering.  Then when I was satisfied that I could at least make some attempt, I picked up a pen and notebook.  The same moment of stillness I described earlier swept over me, the same feelings and emotions, then the moment passed and ink met paper. And here is what I came up with:

Lo comes the one, the heir
to free the captives snare
protect with blood and bone
and set his heart in stone

Begin again the fight
and heal the good in light
ne'r let him stand alone
and set his heart in stone

Release the flood of black
to break and burn and crack
Les chaos life bemoan
so set his heart in stone.

I decided on an Iambic foot, in trimeter.  Below is the previous version, so you can see just how bad the original was before I sanded out the needed concepts and refinished it. 

One will come who will shake the foundations,
One will come who will free the captives.
He who will come will shatter your stations,
Within his heart will be stone.

He alone will see good in the light,
He will come to avenge the wrong.
He will come to set things aright,
Within his heart will be stone.

His protection will be through his blood,
He will set the movements in motion.
His fall to let loose the black flood,
Within his heart will be stone.

Same concepts, but the first one has that metered flow.  I dunno what do you think?