An English Castle

EvilToasterElf

Warwick Castle

We climb for fifteen minutes,
in sun and spirals
on cobbled paths worn to flat pavement,
surrounded by high hedges predating steam power.
Shafts of light explode through those shrubs
like bullet holes,
and we peer into the distant past,
to Warwick Castle.
Gray walls grow, the crenellations
more distinct,
the archers sockets black.
The empty moat covered with an oak
drawbridge, drawn by chains that seem
too old, and too strong to succumb to rust
this castle would not die.
The moat was not filled with water
but human and animal refuse.
Anyone unfortunate enough to fall in
dies of 3 dozen diseases in a week.
The gateway a dozen feet wide
caddy cornered to another gate further inside,
and in between a murder hole.
Space for screams and corpses
pierced through the face and armpits with arrows,
melted with boiling cauldrons from above.
Now the dread crusts pages of history together
leaving bindings of childish awe.
The castle never was breached, no army
could ever take the gate by force.
But one did get in,
the castle betrayed,
and the roundheads entered with promises of wealth
for the captain of the guard,
who hung from the church spire with his master,
until the sounds of bare feet slapping rock
in the elevated wind, faded into
fairy tales
and post cards.

tenaciousA

nice spin on the inspiration

tracingdaisies

I've been to Warwick Castle, climbed its spires and outcropped rocks and all that. Never quite had such a visual...gorefest in my head from its existence.

Thanks? Or ick. I can't decide.

EvilToasterElf

It just as easily could have been a poem written from the keep about the majestic landscapes, the sunlight catching off the bare fields that once grew life sustaining crops, the pitched roofs of a tourist town that once held smiths and bakers and artisans who catered to knights, the green circle of that hill, the grasses that broke against the thick walls like rain rippling across the armor of fallen armies, but who wants to hear that crap...

FinsburyParkCarrots

Originally posted by EvilToasterElf
It just as easily could have been a poem written from the keep about the majestic landscapes, the sunlight catching off the bare fields that once grew life sustaining crops, the pitched roofs of a tourist town that once held smiths and bakers and artisans who catered to knights, the green circle of that hill, the grasses that broke against the thick walls like rain rippling across the armor of fallen armies, but who wants to hear that crap...

You'd be amazed...there are legions of little old dears who tune every night to Poetry Please on BBC Radio 4 for exactly that sort of crap...you could come over here and write that sort of thing for a living; if you told people you were born in England they might even make you Poet Laureate.

Being Enlightened

Originally posted by EvilToasterElf
It just as easily could have been a poem written from the keep about the majestic landscapes, the sunlight catching off the bare fields that once grew life sustaining crops, the pitched roofs of a tourist town that once held smiths and bakers and artisans who catered to knights, the green circle of that hill, the grasses that broke against the thick walls like rain rippling across the armor of fallen armies, but who wants to hear that crap...

LOL! I'm sure some folks do like all the pretty visuals but I prefer the gore and you made it work well here. Nice read ETE!