My Poems

Mount St. Michael by: Robyn Schwartz

It rises up in the deceiving distance
Like a beacon to the wretched and weak
As the lighthouse at Alexandria once opened the seas
To weary travelers, drunk on sea salt and night.
The waves crash on its forgotton stones
Slowly washing away one thousand years
But Mount St. Michael is eternal.
The spirits in the catacombs sleep silent
Remembered in the chants on the monks.
As the ghostly brothers wander the halls
Drinking secrets from the ancient chalice
And tending the grapes for their moonshine wine.
So sacred a place, the stairs need guard it,
Winding in dozens up steep narrow passages
Up and up to the nearing warm skies
Til you reach a breezy gothic chapel
So high you can hear the prayers in the walls
And echoing in the lulling lowly waves
Tamed and bowing seemingly a mile beneath.
Is it a house of God or a fortress of war?
Candlelight of hope or dimness of despair?
No matter, for the people still come
The devoted, the curious and above all the lost
Searching for answers in the carvings,
A lost soul within the tombs,
Or inner peace through the stained glass windows of time.


Napoleons Fountainbleu by: Robyn Schwartz

Napoleon, you evil man, but such the French sophisticate.
Small enough to crush beneath my heels,
But with visions much larger than your mother earth.
I want you to know I came to your home,
Peeked into your bedroom, crept into your latrine.
I wanted to hate you for your Napoleonic code
But was left in awe of your carved wood splendor.
Your knick-knacks of Asia and what-nots of France,
And decorations that would make King Louis seem poor.
Your library was lined with the words of the world,
And not the war of the worlds you had caused.
I wanted to dance with you in the Fountainbleu ballroom
In all your early militant styled garb.
As your palace was my palace,
And your dream collided with my own.
Your architectural size, left me a rolling spec of gravel
In your sprawling, articulate gardens of loneliness.
The statues that are frozen on the carefully tended lawn,
May be everything you wanted to be.
But you are more the stone carvings
Trapped in the palace walls, with faces twisted in despair.
But thank you for the tour, you evil little man,
I share with you your decadence.
For Ill walk the halls, time and again
And youll never know, or be able to stop me.


Villandry ~Robyn Schwartz~ (11/26/01)

Hearts and diamonds, standing at war
Spades and clubs, staring back.
Winding mazes of folklores forest
Guarded only by her majesty, the swan.
These gardens grow over into you.
Tuck your heart into their ivy beds,
Dress your limbs in their topiary madras
And parade you down the endless cobblestone runway.
You become tempted to pick at the pumpkins,
But fear rearranging mother earths rainbow
Of rolling radishes, curving cucumbers and sleepy heads of lettuce
Spying on the nameless passer Byers.
Then you come upon a maze
Whos leaves try you in their courts.
You abide by their turns, play by their rules
And dance as you drift in and out of their protection.
Find you way to an arched footbridge,
Presenting the flowers grandeur as a blooming pageant
And watch the seasons seemingly melt away
As the Loire fuels the earth from below.
And suddenly, you let it in and you know,
Villandry is the secret garden youve long been dreaming of.



Schloss Linderhoff ~Robyn Schwartz~ (11/26/01)

Madness peeling from the gold leaf walls
Drowning in a sea of telling mirrors.
The royal reflection beaming from the crystal chandeliers
And memories spewing from the auric fountains.
Why would he hide in a place like this?
What did he have to hide?
Was is the opium in the Moorish kiosk,
Or the stalagmites defending your fantasy grotto?
Did his cries echo in the candelabra lit halls
As he sobbed in loneliness for this Austrian Goddess.
Or did his tears fertilize the frozen grounds,
And inspire the growth of flowers more wild than his soul?
We know King Ludwig once built Linderhoff
For his ideal mountain retreat.
No one was invited, no love let inside
In this secluded miracle estate
Where his riches watched this king die.