|
Back to Issue 7
Silence by Santiago del Dardano Turann
I have heard silence in a crowd of words
All jostling rudely to be heard
Diseased clatter
The din said nothing, spitting sound
Rumbling pollution in the air.
Silence deafening has my heart ruined
A black hole atomizing mind
On the dispassionate event horizon
Dead bedlam shattering hollow despoiled
In the cold and inhuman distances of space
Within the psychic cosmos.
I have felt the sting of steel
Silence as threads in my lips
Hissing blood,
Blake s mind forget manacles [1][1]
Knitted by smiles on network news.
Mercurial is this chameleon of communication
A fun house mirror
Mocking surface warped by our own eyes.
And...
[1][1] London , William Blake
The Death of Fafila by Santiago del Dardano Turann
The Spanish Christian kingdom of Asturias , 739 AD
Introduction
In the days men still spoke Latin
And paynim pitch burned the Spains
In the northlands in the backlands
Spaniards first at Covadonga
Gained a victory over Moslems
Killing Arab general Alkama,
Capturing Seville's traitor bishop.
Pelagius was the hero who
Outraged like Brutus at the rape
Of Lucretia for his sister
By the Berber Munnuza
In his fortress of Gijon
Raised revolt and battle cry
That echoed to queen Isabel.
Pelagius first of Asturian line
Named his son for his father
In respect and in hope.
The Asturian capital at Cangas
Gathering in a wide hall the court
Who roamed from house to house
Of courtiers and of the counts
For their feasting and their judging,
As Asturia yet had no towns
Only three medieval estates,
Reclined in Fafila's wood demesne
Walls of wattle, daub and clay
With toast to their new young monarch
In Visigothic ways of honor.
There Crispinus ancient priest,
Of a hoary Roman bloodline
Who was a canon in Toledo
When Spanish bishops there would gather
Tended only a rustic altar
Made the equal of Byzantine splendor
As it held from devout hands
Christ's True Body Christ's True Blood.
He had been Pelagius' confessor
A heavy duty conferred to his son.
So he resided on family lands
In the house and in the chapel.
After saying a disturbed Prime
He sought the king and Gothic lords,
Uneasy in the noise and motion.
"God save you, my king," he cried
With honor passing the central
Spitting hearth to the front table.
"Last night I dreamed of the night
You were born and dreamed the words
The Hebrew astrologer told." He said.
"On the day when you were born
Raging Mars in Aries rose
To blot out the tranquil aether
Flowing down from Jupiter.
Huntsmen told of a bear cub born
Rusty red with black paws.
"Odd," they said, "surely an omen."
After Matin's early call
I saw the stars against the same
As that night you were born.
At Lauds I heard a rumor retold
That a terrible rust red bear
Attacked a flock of sheep at Sext.
The message then I knew was clear.
Our Lord now speaks in silent signs
Since the Canon is sealed and shut.
Your majesty, please, call off the hunt
The danger from the bear is great.
But Fafila with the young men;
Young men drinking young men joking,
Had no time for old men's tales.
The hunt has always been our way,
Raging over sierra and hills;
To us it is as the Vespers some say
To capture Grace in a net of words.
In it we form our strength and our bond
Learn art of bow and of horse.
By my father's arms was Asturia built
As old Scipio first took this land.
My own right arm will get back Toledo
By my strength alone we'll win.
"Justice was your father's banner
With a Catholic sword of Faith.
To all things there is a season,
So the Sacred Oracles say,
A time when guided right.
Against a hunt no one would speak
Only watch with care the signs."
But Fafila with the young men,
Young men roaring young men fighting,
Had no care for old men's words.
Crispinus set Rehoboam before him
Solomon's son whom folly cost
Half a kingdom. But Fafila
Called for beer called for pork
Called for the priest to a Mass attend
Raising a cheer from the men.
But Alphonsus sat in silence
Smoldering at the old priest's sorrow
Watched him shuffle out the door
And into the shadows alone.
The Hunt
Slaves ran rushing through the storerooms
Rummaging thatched barns and stables
To gather horses to gather weapons
For the lords and their retainers
As the Hour of Terce came.
Fafila bragging telling stories
Of Herculean javelin throws
Waved his hand against the scoffing
Cutting down his brother-in-law's boast:
How with only a hunting knife
He brought a boar to yield on his blade.
Alphonsus' smoldered honor burnt.
In a red frankish tunic, blonde
Hair flowing like a shroud
Mounted on a fine black charger
Sitting on woolen red-dyed blanket
Fafila blew the baying horn
Rousing every heart to the hunt.
Through the oaks and through the pines
Up inclines the horses struggled
Raising clouds of dirt with
Shouts and cries of the hunters.
Roused deer leaped on the rocks
Doves fleeing branches' shelter
Ravens dived and circled with caws
Above the rumbling hunting party.
The mountain goat with his wide horns
Firm upon the high rock watched
Firm in calm all the men watched
To see them follow the tree line as
A bank of clouds blocked the hot sun
Who overhead touched zenith of Sext.
From the shadow from the trees leapt
Flash of fury, force and fur
Bear claw sank into the horse flesh
Pushed it shrieking to the earth.
Fafila could not reach his sword
Tumbling fast under the beasts.
Arrows flew at the rust bear fur
Roars rose to match his own.
But the bear mauled Fafila
Quickly opening his throat.
Alphonsus grabbed a stout oak spear
Jumping from his mount he rushed
With a war cry waved the weapon
Motion and sound attracting the bear.
His jowls dripping human blood
Tangy taste he craved yet more
Thundered rumbling towards Alphonsus
Ignoring arrows pricking pain.
Calm Alphonsus knelt with his spear
Deaf to cries for him to flee.
Small and low he fixed the end
Angled at the rising fury standing
To attack him in a great pounce.
The metal point pierced the throat
Cutting windpipe slicing veins
The bear's own weight he turned against him.
Alphonsus leapt at the impact
Rolling off to avoid the fall
Then was first to attend the fallen found
His brother-in-law forever silent.
Epilogue
The sadness of the requiem
Sang for the deceased Fafila
Did not equal the people's joy
At the anointing of Alphonsus
As king of the Asturia.
Born to the dux of Cantabria
And as a chief of the Vascones,
He would take the spear of Pelagius
Under the banner of Catholic Faith
That the vain Fafila neglected
To combat the infidel horde
Stand against the Moslem threat:
The eldritch scather fell-faith
And regain the Roman and the
Gothic lands.
|