2013 30 Day Image Prompt Contest Book

"The Watchkeep" (Poetry/Day 9 Entry)

The Watchkeep

The cold wind sweeps across the plain
and yet the watchkeep, with disdain,
stands in silent observation
unyielding in its stoic reign.

Stone reflects the long duration
since the tower’s first formation.
Weathered courses, worn smooth by time,
standing to protect a nation.

Its honor shows in moss and grime
and long lost odes in verse and rhyme
recalling battle glory days
when it stood proudly, in its prime.

Those days, long gone, lost in time’s haze,
still linger in its valiant gaze
as it awaits the time again
when men will sing their songs of praise.



Day 9 – "30 Day Image Prompt Contest - CLOSED" 
Prompt: Image 2 (watch tower)
Form: Interlocking Rubáiyát - The Rubáiyát is a Persian form of several quatrains. An "Interlocking Rubáiyát" is a Rubáiyát where the subsequent stanza rhymes its 1st, 2nd, and 4th lines with the sound at the end of the 3rd line in the stanza before it. In this form, the 3rd line of the final stanza is also rhymed with the 3 rhymed lines in the first stanza. (aaba bbcb ccdc final:xxax) The lines are accentual-syllabic, usually tetrameters or pentameters.

stoic ~ unmoved by joy or grief