Seige Poem by Morgan Michaels

'I can't believe it, ' murmured old Valette, in toney Italian.'The nerve! '
His secretary's quip was earthier. He revered the old man and his crazy bravery.
'Who does she think she is? Thanks for nothing. Can she think of noone's interest but her own? A chip off the old block. Scandal! '
And so on...
'Oliver, she's your sovereign.'
Oliver said nothing. True, he didn't like siding against his queen. Say naught, regret naught. But he wanted his loyalties clear.

Looking out the corbelled window, across the harbor toward the ruins of St Elmo's, old Valette watched the crumbled western rampart and the stone-filled moat and the searching figures of the engineers on top. Like ants. He remembered the battle-those long, awful, bloody summer hours and days he would rather forget, but couldn't.
He thought of the men-how bravely they fought, how gladly and horribly they died. Looking nearer, he saw the ochre fronts of cliff-borne palaces. Like graceful outcroppings of the limestone they rose from.. Both turned fiery gold in the low sun. The in-between expanse of dozing water seemed an overspill for descending angels to bathe in. It turned back the sun's rays. Magnificent.

'As it always would be, ' he thought. Thanks to him. Anachronism, indeed.

But he didn't really think that last part. He just felt it.
Turning from the window and limping to the fireplace, he swore an expletive in Italian that must have sounded mild to Oliver's ears. Without doubt, English was the language of expletives.
On the great...