New Classic Poems – Contemporary Verse That Rhymes

New Classic Poems
People and Places
In the Ruins of Chichen Itza
Neil Harding McAlister
In the Mayas’ holy city
Tourists gawk at silent stones,
While a guide who’s bright and witty
Lectures in irreverent tones.
Shout! and hear the fading echoes
Ricochet off barren walls,
Now the home of sunning geckos
Living in these empty halls.
Children scale the sacred pyramid,
Scrambling up in playful glee,
Just as ancient kings and priests did
With profound solemnity.
Down those stairs the lives of victims
Drained in streams of pain and blood,
Driven by religion’s dictums,
Flowing in a crimson flood.
Carvings in this place of sadness
Tell of cruel depravity,
Founded in horrific madness,
Meted out with savagery.
Who could think that skulls of neighbors,
Caught for obscene sacrifice,
Could induce the gods’ good favors
In a holy edifice
Who could throw a trembling maiden
Down into a well to die,
With gold jewelry heavy laden,
Grace from wrathful gods to buy
Priests and scholars, kings and warriors
In these precincts so accursed,
Far from being mankind’s saviors,
Made men bow to what is worst.
Serving wicked superstition
Labored skilful engineers.
Their work came to what fruition
Nothing more than death and tears.
Break off from the tour guide’s chatter.
Contemplate this vista bleak.
Undistracted by his patter,
You can hear the mute stones speak,
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