Lanterna Magica

An epic poem about friendship, revenge, and a magic lamp.

Prologue
Let us all raise a glass to jolly Captain’s health,
Amongst the honored couturiers and host.
Your prow, skyward turned, bedecked by weighty wealth,
Upon this night, upon your boat.
All, to your brightening star, do toast.
Our tale, as tribute, we do decry,
While on a diamond sea we coast,
Under Hecate’s ghostly rays that lie,
This modest troop from foreign lands espy.
Come close and hearken, every ear,
My song, composed with strangers’ notes,
The trappings and theme, familiar here,
Though I boast the surer anecdote.
And it begins in the house of a misanthrope.

Canto 1
1
Oriental stars wheel and wend to conspire
The fates of whites and sprites assayed.
By day, the sun burns a burdensome fire,
By night, racked with ruthless rays arrayed,
Under its frosty sickle blade.
In the glow of a humble lamp, my tale is spun—
Of dusky urchins in tatters clade,
Befriended by the seventh son,
Their lots at the fore, sadly moribund.

2
The two were fostered by an evil Sheikh
Horse-master, dastard with malicious greed, intent
Both boys hated by him, brought low meek
In uncouth employ, their youth was spent
In meager lodging the two doth rent
The Moorish slave blackened by chimney and bellows,
While the forgotten son mended the Handsome’s tents

The two nare seen separate, indeed truest yokefellows
In the succor of friendship, injustice mellows.

3
The hate wherein their cruel master’s plot did twine,
To make of his chattel a wicked enterprise.
The seed of an Ifrit he did divine
Would make his coursers grow in size.
He chose our two heroes to fetch forth his prize,
Outfitting them neither armor nor lance,
The Sheikh did not mention the risk to their lives.
To the demon’s dark cave they wherefore to chance,
In hopes the horsemasters' beasts would enhance.

4
They were given a tawdry lamp and a rope,
As well as their master’s own poisonous ring:
A token to give to the monster, in hope
Of avoiding the dread manticore’s sting.
Ne any fell curse or fiery darts it may fling.
At once they reached that infernal bower,
The friends huddled close round the lamp they did bring.
From its spout rained a shimmering shower,
And a great Djinn appeared, wreathed in jasmine flower.

5
Their hearts gan to melt in the sprite’s shadow cast,
As the Djinn filled the hovel with hot, heady smoke.
To their surprise, it did not molest or harass—
For the wandering pair, its sweet freedom evoked.
So in merry glee, the Djinn’s voice spoke,
It bowed and began to explain:
The boon of such treasure in wishes invoked,
As long as their bosom friendship did remain.
The claim of the lamp—betwixt the two—must sustain.

6
Ere long, a sound and stink did ensue,
Interrupting the Djinn mid-cant of his lore.
A reek, no valor of man could eschew,
And a howl from the depths of the cave did uproar.
The pulverized sand underfoot froze with hoar.
It was robbed all in flame, but cast forth no heat:
The Ifrit, a deamon from lost days of yore,
Did gibber and gnash, showing splintering teeth.
Its lust, its intent, to sift them like wheat.

7
Their bane fell upon them; their destruction was nigh.
A wonder! as walls wended to wood, not stone.
Spirited to rich environs in the blink of an eye,
On polished oak tables, flambeaux flickering shone.
Clear crystal plates, paired with utensils of bone.
"You're safe now," their host began to entreat.
The slave and the son many thanks did entone.
Grateful for having escaped the Ifrit,
They made their first wish and asked for a feast.

8
They feasted without stopping, seven days and six nights,
Their youthful riot and raucous entertainment not cheap,
Abounding in gaiety, wine, and all worldly delights.
But by the end of the week, the joy did seep.
And the seventh son, sounder of mind, did steep:
“My urchin friend finds feasting a novelty,
For myself, though loathed, did still find a seat
At Father’s tourneys, rife with luxury.”
Now I find the meat and the mead a base frivolity.

9
In the early hour, his friend he took aside:
“What are we to do with this power?” quoth he.
“The Djinn’s bounty in epicurean pursuit we’ve tried.
But what say you to a wish of industry?
A balm to help our fellow man cut the drudgery?”
The urchin, nonplussed, set aside his desire,
And he, in the company of his dearest friend, did agree,
To clasp each one’s handle of the lamp and conspire,
With hopes and dreams of ease for the meagrist buyer.

10
The years, they passed like clouds whipped by the wind,
And an oriole of hope glowed round their estate.
Behold! the beacon of goodwill did shine on their kin,
Adorned in goodly gold chains and sable capes.
As two merchant kings they sat at the gates.
Because of their craft, the workloads were halved,
And the toilers’ hunger for succor sated.
But fate, is a weight, sowing thorns upon their path,
For their evil sires’ ire drew neigh’r with jealous malice and wrath.

Canto 2

1
No stranger to spellcraft and sciences strange,
The Sheikh concocted a most evilsome bile.
One drop of his putrid ichor deranged,
Released a horror most fell, a monster most vile.
Behold! Despised from on high, came the fey Graakenstile,
From out its wide maw spewed poisonous breath,
And in its mighty paw, claws like a unicorn's spiral.
Lo! In its shadow follows the dread Specter of Death.

2
Report of the beast and its malignancy spread,
Came to the gates, and was laid at their feet.
The citizens panicked: “Who will save us?” they said.
“And in fierce combat, this Worm wherefore to meet?”
Quickly they gathered wise counsel to treat.
Later that night, the two met with the Djinn.
Together they wished to grow hearty and fleet,
To gain mastery in battle, in magics to win,
And defeat the Graakenspile, full of violence and sin.

3
The Son shone bright, like a groom fresh from his tent,
His face had a luster, soft and pink as a pearl.
Yet with terrible lightnings the heavens he rent,
And fire from his open palm could hurl.
A truer mage was ne’er found in all the world.
On a lusty charger, his counterpart rode.
Our Moorish waif changed to a mighty knight of the earth,
He sported armor wrought of scalloped silver load,
His glistering sword in the light sang as it strove.

4
Its hell-spun horns were riven in twain,
Whilst weeping wounds the two did inflict.
And in their straining stour, they skinned its grisly train,
Great loops of blood made the ground dank and slick.
Out of the gore was born a subtle magic to conflict.
The true evil lay in lies, leaking from its smoking meat.
Mean manacles of the mind, and vaporous blood plumed thick,
Yet they espied a welp dropping from its mother’s teat,
Gallant and full of vigor, they gave chase for to meet.

5
Casting care to the carrion, they rushed to the prey,
Pursuing the spawn, to that foul lake they went.
Their haughty hearts could not aught be stayed,
Inhaling deeply that most manly hardiment.
To slay the seed and so its spread prevent.
The ill-cast gas rendered them dumb.
False visions, confusions, and betrayals played,
Each found his friend in suspicion cast,
By the light of a hoary moon as it passed.

6
And the Urchin found in his fellow a belittling cad,
A high-born pig, fat from all his feed.
The Son stood to ruin all the fun they had.
The other saw a brute of low-born greed.
Each action, a reaction to his meagerist need.
In that black dream, no charity could claim,
By graceful meridians, at last they were freed.
Sitting in puddles, each face full of shame,
After defeating the beast, they both returned changed.

7
All the while, watching from out his dark bulb,
The cunning Sheikh discovered his twofold mistake:
Those princely parting were his serfs of old.
“For my falling fortunes’ sake,” he spake,
“My old tawdry lamp I must retake.”
An illusion he dreamed, with which for to fool,
With sweetness—not bitterness—he plotted to break
The prize of their love, he sought to unspool.
Then he would sit in unchallenged rule.

Canto 3

1
Years of ease did pleasingly pass,
And the claim of the lamp remained theirs to share.
In foreign lands viewed, and riches accrued en mass,
The two enjoyed every comfort without care.
A life of rich luxury and most succulent fare.
They dwelt safe in mansions, built solid and strong,
Full to bursting with treasures most rare.
And generous gifts they gave to the humble throng;
The two became immortalized in story and song.

2
Golden apples, frosted with silver and platinum rime,
And gardens of glass, to amaze the eye.
Topazes of pale green, plucked as the fruit of the vine,
With sapphires of midnight blue and lapis lazuli,
Hiding stars within faceted folds of crystalline.
A vast menagerie, packed with peacock, crane, and dove;
Yet in this excess, the Seventh Son’s heart began to pine
For a bounty of beauty, even yet conceived of—
He desired, in his heart of hearts, the treasure of love.

3
The Urchin, with wanderlust, set his dusky face like flint,
To tourney and hunts, the black knight travail’d yon.
Collecting upon his shield many a valorous dint,
Leaving study and courtly duties to the Son.
Who, lonely and longing, his own plan carried on.
Proposals were sent to kingdoms far and wide.
Having never played suitor, no courtly manner shone,
He wished for a wish, and his counterpart's return,
For perhaps, through the lamp, a wife could be won.
Meanwhile, at the festal gates, presented in turn,
Beauties, in hopes that he may a helpmeet discern.

4
She was Chastity incarnate, yet with prurient grin,
Ointed with nard of honeydew and mace.
The alabaster virgin’s hand for to win.
All heaven’s graces played pure upon her face.
Her father, a sea lord, approached the throne in humble grace.
“Your Majesty, my daughter, I offer you her hand.”
The mariner king, in strangely familiar tones, spake:
“For dowry, we offer a voyage on our best catamaran.”
Unbeknownst to the Son, a betrayal was planned.

5
And the princess was just as false
As she smiled behind her veil.
And though her charms quickened many a manly pulse,
She herself was dead as a door nail.
A homunculus, built of wicked arts' entail.
So they were wed in haste, for the Son’s impatience proved
As deadly as nightshade laid upon their marital strail.
In the absence of his friend's care,
And master of his own fate’s tale,
The summer ship did him bare to sundry amusements fair.

6
“Look well, oh my soul!” the Son sayed, to himself in secret succor, cry.
“I have found beauty far better than chrysoprase.
Now, in my pleasure, in matrimonial murmurings lie.”
The forgotten now unforgettable, in his own counsel's praise.
Ah! See the returning Urchin’s jealous heart ablaze,
At his jetty’s jettisoning jont, the foisted friend did arrest.
And joined their honeymoon upon the waves,
Under spurious uncouth clout, the festal air he staved.

7
For both men’s thoughts went to their shared beloved light,
And whose jurisdiction they both could claim.
Distance, mistrust, and magics might
Had cleaved the friendship in twain.
And that, notwithstanding, the fair albino dame,
Her lily-white hands round his arm they clasped tight,
They made a fair pair standing there under the main.
His rage to wean and stour unspool, despite
The Urchin's love, won through in spite of his might.

8
In the dead of the night, the dusky Urchin woke to wonder wan,
And straddled the gunnel, unsure what to do.
The mariner king found him forlorn at the breaking of dawn.
Many flatteries he quoth to uplift the knight’s foul mood.
And outfitted him to depart, with boat and some food.
Lowering him down, our hero espied,
Coals in the eyes, sunken and rude.
But the sea lord was cunning, and his purpose belied,
Releasing the lashes and shoved the vessel wide.

9
Fatal! The wastrel's plan, plain as waters began to rise.
The holes he wrought in the hull did fill.
At a distance, with flourish, he doffed his disguise,
Ills to befall him who from woeful evils spill.
A dastardly foe, doomed him to Neptune’s watery chill.
“Freed from the irksome Urchin, no Djinn magic can oppose,
And only one left with which I must kill,”
Quoth the horse lord. His own kith left now to depose.
Hark! His evil laugh, a rasping, hellish bellows blows.

10
The last of the story is a gory betrayal outright,
A shame to God and men, in kin-killing most strained.
It doth not enchant or inspire whites, nor to justice incite.
For the deck of the ship, the Son's blood by it stained.
Deranged was the father, and in his dark countenance no pain did he feign.
The Son fought back in defense of his bride,
But his magic was halved by the seeming bane
Of losing his bosom brother in the outgoing tide.
Bereft and bereaved, he took death to his gentle breast as he died.

Epilogue:

What for an ending? And wherefore the balms from which the sadness smarts?
I see you still enraptured so,
I will reveal the wants we keep, deep down in our hearts,
Are stories filled to the greasy brim with woe,
And in such venomous power, our fantasies grow.
Myself and these players, we traveled the whole ocean, methinks,
In search of this ship, and lo—
The dregs of the cup you did greedily drink,
And to your own tragedies, now in wasted shadows sink.

The poison was wrung from a killer's cold ring,
’Twas held in safe keeping for the sake of a friend.
For I, the Dusky Urchin, survived, it seems,
To bring your jolly captain’s evil to its end.
And in wrothe justice, all will mend.
Your just doom is upon you, your faces afright,
As you glimpse the devils with which you’ll have to contend.
My friend and I in death will blissfully unite,
And all wrongs made on earth, in heaven, will right.

For "love is as strong as death,"

and “jealousy a fierce fire”, so Solomon sings.

Forgiveness I beg with my dying breath,

to God, who knows and sees all things,

and to whom all stolen vengeance stings.

For what profiteth a man, who makes it his goal

to gain the whole world and all the pleasure it brings,

if, at the end of his life, under the reaper’s wispy stole,

he becomes enshadowed by death and forfeits his soul?

The End.