The Historian (Donjon De Vaison) Poem by Andrew Fincham

Stamped Stark
Above the softly shuttered town
Sharp square
Upon the bare blue sky
A shadow on the writhing stream below
Slow winding cool
About the ancient bridge
As if no memory held
The anger of a flood.

So, too, the still baked stone
Loose-filled to form the curtain round the wall
The caverned road
Steep churning soundless through the past
A bruise-washed path
Tight-driven underfoot
‘Neath spans of gates now gone
By doors immured
Once windows, lost

The Donjon rides

(sword-bright
the spikes of oleander)

Strides

(the pomegranate petals fallen trail
like drops
of blood) .