Mallards

There's a party at the pond today
Flamingos stand unmoving
Pink lollipops on slender stilts
Stern and disapproving

There's a party at the pond today
The Mallards have a lot to say
Raucous ducks in ripple rings
Feathered spray and flapping wings

There's a party at the pond today
Flamingos obsessed with their looks
Cannot appreciate that life
Is one long joke to ducks

The Ghost of Hunger to Come

Poor boy eats like a starving beast
He remembers when there was none
Again such a day may come
The thought spurs him on
The ghost of hunger to come
Without satisfaction
Like a starving beast the poor boy eats
Long after hunger is gone

A sunrise of glory
Gold fire in the blue
A perfect day starting for you
Mine will be spent in the grey tennament
Flames in the sky bring no joy to my eye
For what is a day spent that way
I lower my eyes
Turning away

Seratonin ran dry but I can rely
The bottle erases the past
And fear of a future so vast
Is silent in the moment
For as long as the moment may last

Princess Eloise #16 - Epilogue

In epilogue we must report
The final fall of the Royal House
Not on account of civil strife
But occasioned by the Spouse

A gratuitous excess of grief
Away the Queen did carry
And so the King was duty bound
Once again to marry

The grieving Queen passed away
In spite of medication
'Because of it', some now say
Yet I have not that information

Events were thus expounded to
The weary population
Who dragged themselves to yet one more
Queenly coronation

Plucked from plain obscurity
On account of a pretty face
Preserver of the dynasty
Of a degenerate race

Unequal to the duties
Intrinsic to her station
The New Queen made a desperate bid
For sweet emancipation

In her haste to quit her role
Its duties and its cares
She struggled with the ardent King
And knocked him down the stairs

His courtiers found him there
Dead at the foot of the stair
The Queen had upped and run away
None have seen her to this day

It was rumoured she was hid
By a Smithy and his Wife
But I could not swear to it
Rumour is forever rife

The Court made haste to search the land
And find a valid heir
Deep within the Forest Grim
Eloise was well aware

I tell you true she lives there now
And simply does not care
To her the precious Throne of State
Is 'Just another empty chair'

For she lives every carefree day
Longing for to be just there
Wed to the Smithy in the Wood
And guarded by The Bear

Princess Eloise #15 - Rings and Vows

Eloise with Eryn lodged
Waiting for the chosen day
The Boy was busy at the forge
But loath to stay away

The Smithy gave him Lovers' Gold
And rings of fire he wrought
In celebration of their love
That was not lost when sought

And so one morning through the dew
Approaching through the trees
Awaited by the Smith and Boy
Eryn and Eloise

Hung o'er the doorway of the Forge
Are rings within a bow
The Boy and Smithy greet them both
And in the ladies go

They spoke the ancient sacred vows
First the Boy then Eloise
But now the Smith to Eryn bows
And begs her on his knees

Eryn blushes, hand o'er mouth
Then tells the Smithy 'Yes'
And now the vows are said again
In front of different witnesses

Thus came a new Smith to the Wood
The old retired to the caravan
As Eloise was joyful wed
And Eryn lay down with her man

Thus came joy to the Forest Grim
Thus was darkness overcome
Thus a Princess found her Prince
And a mother found her son

Princess Eloise #14 - Rapture

Across her tongue a trickling

In her throat a spreading warming

Her senses waking, quickening

A memory of horror warning

Vision blurred but slowly clearing
Eloise no longer fearing

Extremities to life transforming

The Boy attentive, teardrops falling

She gasps and reaches for the Boy

Her face and his suffused with joy

She pulls him close and kisses lips

She never thought again to kiss

They dress themselves in Forest Green

Him her king and her his queen

Then from the Ossuary's bones

Two heaps arrange upon the stones

Thus they fill their burial shrouds

Upon the marble slab

Then crematoria create

With oil from the lamp

The guards came running to the flame

That Boy and Eloise concealed

Despite a quest to lay the blame

Their subterfuge was not revealed

In the Royal Mausoleum

'Prince' and 'Princess' were cremated

By the flames and no one marked

The gardener and his girl elated

Swallowed by the Forrest Grim

And no one sees her turn to him

And kiss the Boy who loves her so

Who kisses her and then they go

Away from crown and court and duty

To a life of love and beauty

To the life he promised her

When he was but a gardener

Princess Eloise #13 - Phantasmagoria

A coldness descending
The heartbeat slowing
A heavy weight pressing
Light faintly glowing

Into the Shadowlands the Boy softly sinking
But still he is hearing, still he is thinking
Still is he listening, yet is he knowing
What is occuring and where he is going

The sudden cries of the Royal Guard
The lifting of the bier
The journey to the Castle Keep
All this the Boy can hear

The presence of the King and Queen
The Royal Physician's prayer
'The Prince is gone, why look upon
The horror of the bear'

The sorrow for the fallen Prince
Yet for Eloise no tears
Are shed within the Castle Keep
The Chief of the Guard appears

'Lay him next to Eloise
On the marble cold
In the Royal Mausoleum'
The Chief of the Guard is told

(The Mausoleum had been built
Surrounded by green lawn and wall
That extended all about
Without - the guard stood tall)

'Lock the gate for they must wait
While we attend to things of State
Their funeral to prepare
Go at once and lay him there'

The clanging of the iron gate
The rattle of the lock
The silence of the hungry grave
The coldness of the rock

The Boy bit slowly down upon
The waxy capsule in his cheek
His heart took note and thereupon
Stronger now commenced to beat

He freed himself from the Burial Shroud
He felt his way along the wall
He picked the lock within the gate
He was a Blacksmith after all

He slipped outside a'searching
In the darkest gloom
And found the packages he sought
And returned to the tomb

Earlier that afternoon
In hurried preparation
The packs across the wall were thrown
And now provide salvation

To Eloise within the tomb
The Boy now tends her there
With Eryn's arcane medicine
And his own loving care