The Elephants Tower Poem by Ryan Brodesser

The Elephants tower hovers high above the sin and refuse

of pitiful squalor, of men, of cowards and slaves under their masters abuse.

For all the thieving Zamorians, who kill, cheat and steal on a mirthful whim

None have ever gone near that place called the Elephants Tower in distant Shem.

For in that tower, by Bel, lord of thieves, lies a terror, behind mirrored walls

Of lies, of deceptions under an iron fist like in hells nighted halls
A priest most foul keeps here and works alone

And plots evil for all he sees in his house of stone

And all here who rule, haughty nobles with nodding helm

Dare not intrude and drink away all thoughts of Yaras sinister realm


Then a barbarian, a son of Cimmeria, of the rocky and jagged hills

In the land of the north where the cold wind chills

Boldly dared to try and scale the mirrored walls and face the horror within

No man ever expected to see or hear of this bold heathen foreigner again

After a fight he crept away

Away from the lights and sounds in the dying light of day

Away he crept until at the wall

And looked within at where the wizard ruled his hellish hall

Alone he crawled, over the low gated eave

until he meet a fellow, the one they called the prince of thieves

Rogues together, they explored the garden until scaling a wall

until death nearly claimed them from a lions hungry jaw.

Inside they came, like waifs in the night

The thief was first to die, from a spiders envenomed bite

Conan nearly died, the next to fall to the assassins hidden cunning skill

But of the two, Conan had the strongest will

The killer was smashed and fell to the floor

And Conan continued to the unknown, beyond the door.


And what a strange sight greeted his human eyes

A man, yet no man in such a guise

was lying helpless like a captured prize


The man from Yag witnessed our rise from simple ape

To the rise of man during the struggle to our sentience from brutish shape

He had seen it all, from ape to human past the fight and the fall of the Atlantean host

And there he was helpless, awesome creature, tied like a dog to a post


He came from Khitai, of the yellow temples and smoking jungles far in the east

Where he was worshipped as a god and they danced to the pipes of his high priest

Taken away, captured, forced, tricked and chained by his own power

And Yara, drank deep and it was devoured


Eons of eons of pain, for seemingly an eternity of time

While being forced to commit and blacken his soul and wisdom with cosmic crimes

By tortures strange he was eventually coerced

To give his power to quench Yaras evil thirst



And until the end he urged Conan to finish the part

by doing so and cutting out his heart

The deed was done and upon instruction

The creatures last act was to be Yaras destruction



The deed was done and Yara defeated

and thus ended his greed, his curse of greed conceited

The tower crumbled the guards all died

And Conan fled before his luck was to be further tried


And years later, the tale can be told
decades past, by rogue, a king, now sapped of strength and old
and his eyes still shine, with iron will, grim and dour
When he remembers that day, in a place called.. The elephants tower.