The Spell diamond pointed minarets pennants waiting for a sigh stones above the battlements fragile as the years go by absent maidens' unbound hair towers at the drawbridge wait crystal in the thinning air shattered by the falcon's plaint emptied lists of foreign knight errant of their title claim pass in silent clashless fight ghostly as they wait their fame traveler-less a rutted track grassed and bramble over grown twists around on aimless tack leading whither yon and down wild within the courtyard walls ancient orchard fruitless grown harvest not where seedless falls slumbers 'neath the paving stones frozen at the city's gate masoned by a timeless spell iced with tears unheeded wait Queen'd by no one's tongue can tell fracutred wrist held broken high nesting birds in sceptered hand waiting for the pennants' sigh come the wind and stir the land if the wind should rise today wouldn't careless breezes bear crystal in the thinning air tales of but a moment there.
Cheryl L. Higgins's Questions:
The poem dictated its self and came out with four feet each line in each stanza, instead of 4,3,4,3. Alternating rhyming worked well for it, and the improbablness aspect of it is in the fairy tale idea that a wanderer has come upon an ancient castle, seemingly frozen in time (by a spell); and their are shades and shadows of its inhabitants about it, including a statued queen before the city gates.
the use of the word "crystal" is more truly meant to mean "Crystalline", but the latter is an awkward word and I wanted crystal to work in its place. That doesn't mean it does. I am trying to come up with an adjective to describe the idea of fragile glass and turrets and architecture aged by hundreds, maybe thousands of years into something that sort of shatters or falls apart in a delicate way - shatter ( a verb, I know) implies too much impact - tinkling is the right word, but I hate it, its a weird word, to describe the distant sound of, perhaps, glass pieces falling a long way down onto a stone pavement, or something. I like crystal, its enough for me, but I have had others read this that couldn't like it or "get" it, so...Also, any other stanzas or images too ambiguous? If contemplated, the images are sort of static, just something a traveler might see or sense passing by this ruin where little life or movement has been where time seems suspended while wating the breaking of the spell...Cheryl