Do you dare go one step beyond?  
 the limits of your comfort zone?  
Rely upon yourself alone 
 and take the road to Trebizond. 
 
A city where the minarets  
are peopled by resentful ghosts 
Who vainly shout their empty boasts 
And voice aloud their dire threats. 
 
Brag of past depravity. 
For which the suffer punishment. 
They weep and wail their discontent. 
Condemned for all eternity. 
 
Are you brave enough to face  
All of the dangers you might find  
enough to break the strongest mind. 
In that long lost and fearsome place. 
 
 A city which was once designed 
 to be a place a place of peace and rest. 
Hypotheses could be refined,  
 and theories put to the test. 
 
Fate was to prove the wise men fools.  
As she has often done before  
Fomented into civil war. 
 The views of the opposing schools  
 
The learned men were powerless 
 they could not stem the violence 
Though they foresaw the consequence 
As followers sought to impress. 
 
The views which they held to be true. 
 On other men who disagreed 
Defending their own narrow creed. 
 As bigots always tend to do. 
 
The learned men were first to die 
They weren’t as wise as they had thought  
they had no time to wonder why. 
They perished in the first onslaught. 
 
Their wailing ghosts will argue still   
that they were right the others wrong. 
I have no doubt they always will 
that’s why they stay where they belong. 
 
Confined to haunted minarets 
 in a city men have forgot. 
They still owe payments on their debts. 
You may be fearful I am not. 
 
I dare to take that step beyond 
 the confines of my comfort zone 
 and travel on to Trebizond 
Though usually I go alone. 
 
06/05/2009 
http: // blog.myspace.com/poeticpiers
ivor or ivor.e hogg
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/dare-you-come-with-me/