PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Crumbling tumbling turrets and glowering towering spires

Libraries housing centuries of dust and unread tomes

Black beetles cause the boards to creak and no-one lights the fires

The only presence to be felt here is the ghost who roams

who tilts the pictures on the walls, makes patterns in the dust

and draughts to puff the curtains out with icy-quiet breath

causes books to jump their shelves and turns each noble bust

to face the darkly-panelled walls and a little death



Empty, you would say, but you would not find you were right

By day the towers are occupied by creatures wild and strange

They nest amongst the bookstacks till the fleeing of the light

when wings unfurl to take them skywards, far and wide to range

The city their dominion, and the ancient towers their lair

A place where dragons dream of splendours echoed from their past

Spectacular at dusk to see the dragons dance in air

across the skies on wings that fan the hair as they sweep past



Few citizens avail themselves of this nocturnal treat

Preferring to remain indoors, tucked safely up in bed

for let us not forget the ways of dragons who desire to eat

Many a soul has paid the price for seeing dragons fed



How beautiful they are though, how majestic in their ways

They give much more, mouths gaped in awe, than ever they could take

How grey and sad our lives would be, how uniform our days

Could we not shiver at the sight as dragons leave their wake



Pity the urban child who'll live here five hundred years hence

No towers left, no dragons; in their stead, a million homes

each one surrounded by a carefully-painted wooden fence

to keep out undesirables (i.e. anyone who roams),

where television daily leaves imagination chained



Our legends have no meanings for the children of this age,

they'll read no books; computers will be king where books once reigned

our children will tap keyboards where they once would turn a page



But that time is not yet, and so for now we watch and wait

This is the time of dragons, here their kingdom and domain

We talk of them in taverns until the hour grows late

then peer from windows in the dark to see them fly again

from crumbling tumbling turrets, from glowering towering spires

the dragons soar in lazy curves to silhouette the moon

and chase the tails of comets, leaving sediments of fires

to silt the sky with colour where the stars are thickly strewn