I'm in a poetic mood today. Here's one that I did about a year ago, one of the few I've done in free verse. Subject: Ancient Babylon. Why? I felt like it. :-)
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I have seen, can you believe--
waters lapping out to drip
on moss and ferns below
that grow from flower-scented steps,
kept dim by captive trees
dragged from mountain earth and rock
to recreate for kings
a foreign glade.
Not far, a man-built mountain's dressed
in lines of pitch and outstretched
triangles of shade
that almost touch the royal home
that bears the multi-coloured crest
that's borne by Su-Abu himself.
All other colour's leached from living land
and structures' bricks are baked to pale tan
by the god we cannot bear to look upon,
the cause of light and heat and drought
and death and life to men within these lands.
In twisted streets below the business folk
court custom, deal in goods and trust,
hawk phlegm and wares in rising dust
and hope for coin. Clasp hands and bow
the litter lingers now, an eye appears
the curtains shut, the lady passes by
pomegranates, figs, mounds of barley, rye,
tuns of beer, and gold, and lapis lazuli.
Distant walls in triple safety keep
this nest of men, so fears of slaughter sleep
in mighty Babylon.
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