The Towers of the Wyrms

Nine towers of stone.
Around each coils a wyrm.
No way in – no door, lock, key,
but a single row of windows at the top
where I think I glimpse the face of a madman.
They are old as the grey mountains.
I want to claim they were built
by the haulers of scree,
the wyrms summoned and bound
by the might of magicians or that they came
of their own free will raising the towers
from some secret land underground
that has never been seen. Share rumours
of a sibylline prophetess who consulted the wyrm’s heads
but whose words are not recorded in dusty books
in an arcane language eaten by bookworms.
But no explanation rings true or exists.
I feel like banging my head against
the stone demanding an answer
from the inexplicable unblinking eyes
and long stony tongues silent as the purple skies.
I cannot accept this vision defeating poetry.

I wrote the poem above a couple of years ago and the vision it is based on has stuck with me. It’s only since I started writing my new mythic book, The Dragon’s Tongue, that I realised that the nine towers correspond to the nine heads of the Dragon Mother Anrhuna and that when she was killed her nine heads were bound on the towers so the creator gods had power over the nine elements (stone, earth, magma, fire, air, wind, water, mist, and ice). I’ve finally got round to trying to draw the scene, which I find helps.