Articles

The Ennunment Canto 5

By Thomas Keyes
Apr. 11, 2007

This is an excerpt from a poem that I’m writing just for fun.

THE ENNUNMENT CANTO 5

With coronation done and nuptials sung,

The abbess, King and Queen and I were met

The statues and the tapestries among,

At Ajinblambia’s for tête-à-tête,

There in the office where she turned the helm

Upon the poop of Ung’s great ship of state,

The argosy of Ung’s perennial realm

Heavy with its empurpled, golden freight.

Descending from the high formality

Of great occasions, just pacifically

We chatted in relaxed normality

Of this and that, of nought specifically.

Then Ajinblambia began to speak

Of that great marble statue she’d upraise

Atop Mount Vlacva, the sublimest peak

Within Mecníta, gilt by golden rays.

Mount Vlacva, standing 20,000 feet ,

Would be surmounted by a sculpture white,

Depicting nude and beautiful and sweet,

The royal pair embracing in day’s light.

Two thousand feet the carving would ascend,

Which to erect would take full seven years.

Two hundred miles their faces would resplend

To draw from loyal eyes their movèd tears.

Mount Ajinblambia-and-Udi named,

The peak no longer would Mount Vlacva be.

The sculpture over all the planet famed

Would stand in pride for everyone to see.

Then Ajinblambia bade Jorbing tug

The model of the statue that would be

Into her office with its lavish rug.

’Twas mounted on a trolley, we could see.

The replica was scarcely eight feet tall.

But nonetheless, the abbess and myself

Were much impressed and taken therewithal,

On seeing it atop its rolling shelf.

I rose but for a moment to admire

Its graceful lines and beauty unsurpassed,

Then backward but a step did I retire,

Forgetting where I had been sitting last.

I had been seated on an oaken chair,

Upholstered in wine plush with golden lace

In tapes sewn to the back with perfect care

With likenesses of blossoms on their face.

Howe’er, unthinkingly, instinctively,

In Olezconia’s great lap I sat,

In folds that marked her so distinctively

As abbess of the nunnery whereat

I was a nun, my mistress and my dame.

The King then smiled and said to me with glee,

“O Sister Rogizlenia, your fame

As loveliest of lesbians will be

Exclaimed throughout the length and breadth of Ung.”

Her words were like to carillons or chimes,

With golden melody so fitly sung

With silvern harmony’s most perfect rhymes.

As I descended, though, the lady King

Bade me upon the abbess’s lap stay,

If that to be therein were just the thing

Myself, I would have chosen on that day.

From that day on, there was a single chair

For Olezconia and me to use,

The meaning from thereout did brightly stare.

Could I the will of majesty refuse?

For only three great ladies made a quorum,

And I was just a a babe or pet for sport,

A non-participant in their high forum,

Meseemed the one-chair rebus did import.

The eastern oval would a harem be,

King Ajinblambia to us expressed.

She’d marry girls from Ung and o’er the sea,

Good-looking women into service pressed.

She reasoned 20,000 she could wed

Without affecting population trends.

They would be ladylike and nobly bred,

Among themselves sweet comrades and dear friends.

Queen Udi o’er the ladies would preside,

Extravagantly, gorgeously attired.

The ladies, though, would e’er be locked inside,

From public view extracted and retired.

Just Ajinblambia would come to visit,

Selecting her companions and her brides

From the most elegant and most exquísite

Brought thither from the ether and the tides.

The coronation had been held in peace

Within a chapel quaint and dark and rich,

Where swaying censers did their myrrh release

And golden angel flew in oaken niche.

Quite few were the attendees at the function,

Who gathr’ing round beheld the crown emplaced

And saw my fingers carry out the unction,

As I the symbols on her forehead traced.

But there would be another coronation,

In Pantoflambo Field, a vast expanse

That could contain the millions of the nation

As they would sing rejoicefully and dance.

Above the campus beetling, stood the peak.

Mount Vlacva, where the statue would be stood.

It was a mighty emblem that did speak

The glory of the King so wise and good.

Both troubadours and minstrels walked about,

And actresses and ballerinas strolled

From stage to stage, and into grove and out.

For there were hill and dale, and wood and wold.

The sound of viols, mandolins and lutes

Was blent with that of trumpets and recorders,

And there were bagpipes, oboes, horns and flutes

Amidst wide Pantoflambo’s foursquare borders.

Jute sacks of walnuts, cashews and pecans,

Did vie with heaps of pomegranate and pear,

And popping corn, and baking tarts and flans

Released their sav’ry breath into the air.

And there were lobster, venison and pork,

And wheaten loaves with sesame bestrewn.

Sufficed the meat for everybody’s fork.

Sufficed the sauce for everybody’s spoon.

Liqueur and cider, brandy and champagne

Flowed copiously on that gay pageant day,

Nor were there clouds and wind or pouring rain

The spirit of the feast to drive away.

Contestants vied at sports and prizes won,

While poetesses sang their lovely rhymes

Of love and beauty till the day was done.

These were the fairest and the fondest times

That ever did befortune Ung’s vast lands.

For Ajinblambia, with high resolve,

Would for a century within her hands

The gimbals of the planet make revolve.

Late in the afternoon, she climbed a stair

Onto a dais sápphirinely black,

Pavilioned all around with satin fair

Edged with galloon in front and sides and back.

The Queen, the abbess and myself did gaze

With boundless admiration at the sight.

Around such majesty a hallown haze

Was wafted and did mellow solar light.

Now Olezconia without a word,

Just almost imperceptibly did nod.

Unto her silent bidding I deferred,

And meekly to the dais quickly trod,

For I would give unto the King her crown

That she might raise it to her sovran head,

Then by the stairs would I come quickly down,

And in the abbess’s direction tread.

Magnificence and majesty supreme

Embodied by our monarch is this wise,

’Twas likely none would ever even dream,

Much less expect to see it with their eyes.

Then skyward we all looked and there beheld

In three dimensions standing on the plain,

A thousand leagues in height, to Zenith swelled,

The likeness of the lady who would reign.

Translucent statue, figure made of air,

Hallucination or a mystic swoon,

I wist not what befell us, ’twas so rare

Like this to happen of an afternoon.

The great similitude did fill the sky,

As if a goddess were our royal dame.

The apparition reason did defy.

Who was this Ajinblambia by name?

The image paled and disappeared at length.

Again the sky was cloudlessly celeste.

Then suddenly a roar of mighty strength

We heard to sound from out the planet’s chest.

Meseemed Mount Vlacva rumbled, but ’twas known,

Volcanically the mountain was extinct;

So did the realm’s geologists intone.

To what occurrence was this tumult linked?

Alone in apprehension I was not,

For many sighed and gasped to hear this thunder,

Improbable, impossible, I wot,

For this was like to miracle or wonder.

With bated breath, in palpable alarm,

We waited for the sequel of this noise.

Were we in danger of eruption’s harm?

Or should we just maintain our wonted poise?

The mountain rumbled time and time again,

And tremor followed tremor, fleet and fell.

A panic gripped all women, children, men,

Hysteria that it were hard to tell.

Then jets of fire spurted from the mouth,

And lava flowed adown the lofty slopes.

A molten inundation, north and south,

Both west and east would dash our finest hopes,

And bury us in seas of flaming stone.

But as the gushing mountain with its charge

Did or’nge the sky, vermilioning the zone

Whereof our pageant grounds were at the marge,

A spectacle like none in all my hours

Unfolded on the foothills and on high.

For flames became bright blooms, flamboyant flowers

Whose petals tinged all quarters of the sky.

Or’nge pixie and enchantment lilies vied

With irises, or’nge dawn and fleur-de-lis,

Of flaming parrot tulips furlongs wide,

And orchids, birds-of-paradise asea,

Of pompoms rouged and marigolds galore,

Red riots, yellow bursts and golden sprays

Kaleidoscoped above, while couronne d’or,

Canary-colored peonies did blaze,

Aflame with fireworks and cressets bright,

In shades of pumpkin, scarlet, crimson, rose.

The firmament was glorious with light,

A choreography of bright flambeaux.

The pirouettes and pas de chat of fire

The arabesques and cabrioles of light,

Now burst and leapt, ascending ever higher,

To vie the Sun, if they were just as bright.

Then petals and corollas ’gan to pale.

The flames to flicker and to shimmer dimmed.

Now earthwards all the flowers in a gale

Were downward blown. Mount Vlacva next they limned,

But momentarily, because eftsoons,

Into the ground, like scimitars, they vanished,

Elongated, like luminescent lunes

Into the planet’s surface they were banished.

Anon the sky was azure, and the Sun,

Alone presided Heaven, as before.

Of great phenomena the greatest one

’Twas what we’d just beheld and would adore.

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About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far.

I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents.

Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com

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