Poetic Tides Through Time

Apocalyptic Resistance

By the bronze banks of Babylon
  rest silver twisted steel beams sheared.
Corrupt jagged tarnished rafters,
  where aged red brick buildings reared,
         Rusty remnant remains.

Barren, bleak, corroded and charred,
  chromatic trees mildewed and bare,
Starkly surround abandoned shops
  once standing proud where cobwebs snare
         Rusty remnant remains.

Inoxidizable rotting waste
  from industrial life visions,
Discolors Babylon’s water,
  sludge of telium’s divisions:
         Rusty remnant remains.

My horse steps deep in oozing mud,
  trudges slow this corroded plot.
No greens to nibble, brown sticks of
  ferrugo; isothermally hot
         Rusty remnant remains.

Each human who has ceased to be,
  whose whispers echo through ruins rust;
Whose life forms birthed vaporized air.
  their lives shorn, dreams vanished to dust,
         Rusty remnant remains.

Chestnut steed outruns destruction,
  escaping bombed land’s rancid waste.
Ferrying earth’s lone survivor,
  fast from rubiginous soil raced-
         Rusty remnant remains.

Pasture lush freshly grows, quick my
  horse firmly trots, lightly steps above ;
Emerald ribbons rich he spies
  free from fungi’s ravaged stain of
         Rusty remnant remains.

His frantic pace my horse swift slows
  to forage food, sweet green grass mined;
Babylon's umber ashen blot
  haunts me, a shadow in my mind:
         Rusty remnant remains.


____________________________________________
Entry: April 1, 2017
Prompt: Rust or the color rust
For: Dew Drop Inn Poetry Workshop
Form: Rondel Grand is a form created by Victoria Sutton, aka, Passionspromise.
It is stanzaic, and syllabic, with a minimum of 3 quintains, and no maximum.
The first four lines are 8 syllables, the fifth line is 6 syllables. This poem
follows a Modified Rondel Grand (see note on rhyme pattern).
Rhyme Pattern: ababR cdcdR..etc.
Note: This poem was modified to an abcbR, etc. rhyme pattern.


Commentary ▼

         All I could picture with this prompt was the rusting steel beams and factories across our country, especially in hard hit industrial areas. For some reason, the story "By the Waters of Babylon" also influenced this poem. Perhaps my niece's recent visit to Japan and Hiroshima Museum may have had an impact as well.

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.~~Robert Frost