From The Watchtower (Poetry)

I have much in common
with an old crumbling castle —
I look out across those misty morning plains
                                                    of memory
and pick out distant shapes
unnameable they waver in the grey
retreating ever-further from the fray —
the fight to keep from falling
into nothingness ...

It is a wonder I’m still here
when so many others have been ruined past repair —
sunk grassed-over blotted from the map
I’m a marker for the history we share
this pile of years precarious
I gather moss and let hard rain inscribe
chill warnings on my stones

I’ll never fly bright flags again
my garrison disbanded long ago
cannons silent — youth’s brave thunder stopped
by plugs of disillusion — time’s poor show
of sportsmanship that undermines us all
and tilts the rock I’m built on — slowly
faith’s twin towers lean ...
and I can’t believe the carnage now
my man on watch swore no one had forseen