Category: Writers Block
Oh city fair, in dark despair, how shall we sing your name?
For once your walls and marble halls were the stuff of fame.
Shall I recount the numerous founts that bathed your cobbled streets?
Or dare I tell the sites and smells of the market feats?
Mayhap I'll sing of anvil's ring as smithies forged their craft,
Or praise the merry unsolitary sounds as children played and laughed.
And too I'll praise the sunlight rays as they glitter upon your pave'd roads.
Or regale the knell of deep church bells, rung for worshipper and bless'd betrothed.
Now hear the dirge of the woeful scourge granted by the bards of war;
With sorrowful note, trembling wrote, dark despair is at the door.
Sharpened arrows flew from bows men drew to rain death behind boundaries high.
Blazing fires from funeral pyres, dark smoke blanketed the sky.
Maidens cried and children died, heroes felled from parapets aloft.
Thence were shorn, the newly born, deprived of comfort in bosom soft.
Red ran the flow of life -- and low, a cacophony of sorrow,
Till corpses piled high by her besmirched sides, concealing happiness passed and beauty morrow.
They came in hoards o'er river fords to bring destruction upon your town.
Hence your men in lines of ten marched forth towards killing ground.
With swords they slashed, and spears they flashed, till blood flowed beneath their feet.
With strength of will and need to kill, they toiled till twilight's meet.
Thence the soldiers worn, with wounds they'd borne, retired to stately sleep.
Beneath a languid moon, the bards' their tune, brought them some peace to keep.
But by Rosy-fingered dawn, fury shall spawn, and war must waken once more.
Anon they'll fight till next twilight, and turn the earth to bloody shore.
On trodden field, with sword and shield, the men did vent their killing rage.
And now the grass, and armor of brass, oh how they claimed blood for their wage.
Stalwart fighting men, warring in a crimson glen, their flesh hung ragged upon the walls.
Old and young alike, cast upon spear and pike, never again to grace those humble halls.
And of the foe, how shall we know, in what numbers they came?
For they tore through, with hack and hew, leaving naught but fire and flame.
And yet their toll was not in whole without trial nor loss of blood,
For when they left, many were bereft, buried beneath a sea of crimson mud.
Savages mailed, with faces veiled, they hailed from yonder plains.
Covered in full, from calf to skull, they came baring pikes and chains.
With cords they choked, and spears they poked, till vultures rejoiced in feeding frenzy.
Arrows and bolts and wooden catapults, they also had aplenty.
Neczurai they're named, for death their famed, and war and conquest is their joy.
No civil strings nor settling things, they ever wander to seek and destroy.
A withering plague, a phantom vague, neither as frightening as their brutal war.
And when in might, they come by night, dwellers do best to flee their bless'd door.
Merithryn the city, we sing in pity, and remember the echoes of your fabled strength.
For your sad demise, we wipe our eyes, and recount the tragedies at length.
Four massive gates with iron plates, adorning each face of your mantle stone.
Many a rising tower, some to chime the hour, others bright with the signal lamps that shown.
These they torched, with flames they scorched, and scoured your cobbled streets.
The gates they smashed, the walls they crashed, iron girdle crushed beneath trampling feet.
Buildings fair and plazas there, all be smudged by pillaging hands.
Axes fell on sacred dwells, leaving naught but rubble upon shifting sands.
I sing in sorrow, with voices borrowed, of fabled Merithryn.
With sad relent, and efforts spent, resurrecting ashes from age'd coffin.
Gone her gold, a thousand fold, buried beneath the grains of time.
Only phantoms remain, bound by written chain, scrawled across this page of rhyme.
Her people lost in Holocaust, oh savage peril of warring men.
A citadel fair, crafted by centuries care, shall we never see again.
Now echoes sleep, in your crypt to keep, and I lay this lyric to rest.
Remain only in our dreams, plots and artful schemes, sorrows borne in aching breast.
With harp and lyre, for noble and sire, I shall sing of your triumphs and woes.
By campfire light beneath starlit night, I'll recount your fame as soft wind blows.
Strumm'd notes beneath a languid moon, upon finest strings that giveth tune, music to worship your ancient name.
Words in lyrics scrawled, uttered from throat with voices called, giving life to your bless'd claim.
Merithryn of times before, resting 'pon some ancient shore, I give life to thee again.
Wisdom from history's gift, trickling down like sands that sift, become the blessing of living men.
Merithryn we love thee, affections bound in eternity, passionate memories of a city lost.
These songs we treasure, lyrics in metric measure, all in recognition of Merithryn lost.
The difference that 9 weeks can make…
‘Twas back in ’90, 1990 that is...just a few months lacking of 16 years when an Echo as it were, was first sounded and could been heard and oh did I tell you, could so profoundly be felt as well for deep was the pain of it all… Those reverberating Echoes vibrating, vibrating, vibrating ever through the years as liken as to how tidal waters always return once again to shore, sometimes with tide so low and other times in full measure with water amply high, so too the Echoes as it were, sometimes so faint and low and far distance away and other times drenched as it were in their fullness to where almost drowned as it were I in their presence have found myself.