By [email protected]
posted on 25th August 2004
Mirabeau
T'was the falling of dawn,
Thy mind the place of ideas born.
A spark of light in the dark blossoming,
A flame, a conflagration in the creating.
The will to challenge what was the norm,
The strength to maintain the current form.
Isolation and accusations cut to the core,
Beastly vile words come to the fore.
Heresy, blasphemy, nonconformity
Madness, insanity, flights of fallacy.
In light of one they shall unite,
Society, cutting short an individual's flight.
Yet, irony, unbeknown to all,
The future they seek, it shall fall.
The future, belongs to one to create,
He lives, he dies, there shall be debate.
Ideas, sown, like the seeds of change,
The strong shall thrive, the meek shall faint.
But for the Martyr, who gave his soul,
All is worth, more so than gold.
For his selfless sacrifice,
He has helped us roll the dice.
And once this dice stops all revolutions,
All shall change, for this is, evolution.
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Avignon
The gentle breeze whispers through the streets,
Cooling the city of 6 millennias.
Such an irony, as the calm river flows,
For this is the "Town of the Violent Wind".
Lush greens reflected on the river's mirror,
Spires stand tall in the clear blue sky.
Battlements of old, keeping sentinel guard,
Breathtaking fortresses, dominate the skyline.
Magnificent and imposing,
The Saint Bénézet spans.
Cutting into the Rhône,
Waters swirl around 4 arches.
But a former glory it has known,
When once it was 22 arches long.
Louis VII laid siege in 1226,
His rage he laid on Saint Bénézet.
70 years, the popes held court,
The rise of Palais des Papes in the name of God.
A period of golden bloom,
Followed by a period of dark dark doom.
Many thousand lost their lives,
The Plague, it swept, without mercy.
And for the next 300 years,
It shall reside, taking humans at it's whim.
When they finally subsided it,
A calm prevails, and fortunes grow.
The Nazis came in 1942,
Freedom came but 2 years after.
This town of old, of great culture,
It lives today, an important centre.
Standing on the banks of the River Rhône,
Across Saint Bénézet, the eye shall behold.
Town of the Violent Wind,
It changed hands, the Romans, the Goths,
It belonged to a great many kingdoms,
Burgundy, Arles, kingdom of Forcalquier.
The arts, and science, they flourish here,
In this town, of saffron bricks and ancient stones.
The crossroads of Provence and Languedoc, of Italy and Spain,
Flourish it shall, millennias to come.
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Sulzfeld
Church bells of Sulzfeld gently toil,
Their melody ringing over the fields.
The gently rolling countryside,
Vineyards abundant amongst lush greens.
A patchwork of red brown and grey,
White brick walls, the town they make.
Sapphire skies and emerald lands,
And the ruins atop the hill they stand.
An ancient castle, once was mighty,
The town, the lands, it shall protect.
But time conquers all, it always has,
Ravensburg Castle began to crumble.
All that's left of it today,
A tower remains, still standing proud.
Eager visitors can choose to climb,
To see the magnificent countryside.
Its share of wars, Sulzfeld has seen,
Battle of Cyriakus, it was a win.
But the Swedes damaged it twice,
The 30 Years War, it wasn't kind.
Earls of Castell and Henneberg,
And Margrave Achilles,
They fought but failed,
To conquer Ravensburg and Sulzfeld.
Today it sits pretty, bustling and bright,
7 villages in the distant countryside.
Take a stroll along the lush grape vines,
Or climb the tower, oh behold the sight!
