Fellow Travellers

[dedalus]

The king was in his counting house

counting all his money;

Jock and I were chained in the dungeon,

not the least bit funny.

 

The queen was in the parlour

eating cakes and honey;

Jock and I were on bread and water

and our sores had gone all runny.

 

This is what you get

for being a Celtic Communist,

lost back in the Middle Ages:

tossed into cages, burnt at stakes,

bound in chains with wife and wains,

hurled into nearby lakes.

 

We preached the Third Stage of Capitalism

while the world was concerned with Papal Schism,

we were a bit, perhaps, before our time

(garrotted, impaled, then buried in lime)

but people need to be told things.

 

Jock was a Seeker, a fiery speaker,

"Guid wha' tha haw an tschock na lings!"

he'd cry to the gathering gawking crowds

and me, I'd translate, open the roiling clouds

to expose the shining sun, I was the one

that had a way with the local lingo,

this guttural sputtering spitting speech

these brutes had cobbled together ... bingo!

and called the Ingurish tongue.

 

When the castle in time was attacked

Jock and I were the first among

the prisoners who escaped: the queen,

I'm happy to say, was repeatedly raped,

incessantly, in fact, to her heart's content,

and subsequently went to live in Ghent

with the gentleman-rapist best endowed.

 

Her husband, the king, did not fare so well:

fearful, tearful, and thoroughly cowed

he was hastened on his way to hell,

garrotted, impaled, and buried in lime,

dug up, hanged, then burnt at the stake,

as an afterthought slung into a lake.

 

Sic transit gloria mundi.

 

Jock and I married two bonny sisters,

we set up a tea shop in Ayre.

Damn the speeches, no more emotional fits,

we've become Democratic Socialists.

The girls run the shop, God bless 'em,

we smoke our pipes in the garden.

[Tinker]

Dedalus, this was a delight to read. I loved it. I don't recall ever reading a poem of your with rhyme and repetition. It simply blends with the content and lyrical rhythm to create a fine poem. When I read your work I often wonder where you come up with your subjects. You entertain and inform at the same time.

 

~~Tink

[Nick Tselepides]

Lovely poem. I liked each word.

 

Should it not be "bony" instead of "bonny"?

 

Thanks for a witty, fine piece.

[dedalus]

Nick writes: Should it not be "bony" instead of "bonny"?

Never in Scotland!