Poem by Roger Weingarten

SENTENCING THE FAIRY TALE


 

Once there was a town surrounded
by a wall so high that pilgrims
traveled by water and by sled,
by elephant and by ass, from the four
corners and by the four winds
just to climb Mt. Ellipsis, from which
they could look down on the maze
of curved and cobbled streets
that led to the hub. There, a miraculous
dwelling, like a wheel of cheese domed
in something transparent but hard enough
to ward off what winters there were,
luminesced. Weren't the awestruck many--
looking down through the invisible
roof through the daily workings of this
architectural wonder--ecstatic
from staring into the thousand
eyes that lined the path
to the summit and whirling from the wondrous
vapors from the cheeseries that rose
to greet them? Perhaps, but that
didn't prevent one salty traveler,
keen of eye and with a nose
for a fortune to be made--however stuffed
it was from dusty curds kicked
in his face as he climbed--from perusing
preparations in the round house for the princess's
bat mitzvah. Before descending the backside
of Mt. Ellipsis to visit his old friends
the woodsman and the woodsmaness and his three
godsons, Syntax the Sailor blew
three notes into his hankie, then tied
the strings of his codpiece into a bow. Greeted with
news that the two eldest had left
for the round town, while Verbio--with a prophetic
look to his eye, taller and even more
handsome than when the sailor had last
laid eyes on him--lifted
Syntax in the air in a great hug, danced him
across the dooryard and set him down
in The Apostrophe Woods out of earshot
of the woodsman and the woodsmaness. Begging
Syntax to take him along, Verbio--determined
to make his fortune before his two bullying
older brothers made theirs--dropped to his knee
in supplication. But I lost my ship, Syntax
confessed. Command me, Verbio rejoindered,
and a ship with many sails will materialize
out of the luck of our collaboration. Rise,
Verbio, Syntax replied, and they left
before daybreak with the woodsman
and the woodsmaness shouting into the wake
of their departure to remember how they lost
his twin. But, when Syntax
and Verbio turned again for a last
farewell, all they could see was the morning
glittering between intertwined branches.

In what seemed like only a second
down a humid path, they came upon
an enchantress dressed in a quicksilver
mist singing a song that seemed to come
not from her lips, crimson and barely parted,
but from the needles and spiked cones
of the trees surrounding them, from the pair
of silver foxes spinning on their backs
while she juggled a tree end to end. Syntax
transfixed, fell to his knees, and as he fell
the tree began to juggle the charmer
branch to branch. Seeing his mentor
bewitched, Verbio snatched a grapevine
from a thicket and tied the sailor to this mast-hard
back. Syntax screamed at the vine
to let him loose and tried to tear the young man's
skin off with his fingernails. But Verbio,
bent on finding his fortune, just put
one foot in front of the other, deaf
to the song's enticements, and blind
to the quicksilver wiles of the juggler.
Nounio, shouted Pronounio.
Silence, you bunghole. Didn't I
tell you not to speak while I'm choking
this hag to make her give up the magic
nose flute, Nounio the eldest snapped
at his brother, who, poor of digestion
and ever sensitive to Nounio's temper,
apologized for interrupting while filling
his breeches and the six nostrils that
belonged to himself, his brother,
and Genderrhea the Hag
with an ill wind. Release your grip,
she gargled, and I'll give you
everything you deserve. She stuck her parsnip-
shaped nose like a key into the squirrel hole
of an ancient tree and cocked her head
to the right. A door creaked open to reveal
stairs illuminated by phosphorescence
issuing from its very roots. Prony,
see if you can climb down into the bowels
of this oak and fetch the flute, while I
keep this crone from doing mischief.
When Pronounio, erupting
with every step, returned holding the magic
instrument to his heart, Genderrhea
grabbed for it, but Nounio
brought his scimitar down
on her spindly neck. Her head rolled
cackling down the steps before
the door closed and she could tell them
how to play it.

Lately, plump King Imperativo couldn't
remember even his name. Participlio,
he'd yell across the table to Queen
Superlativa, please pass a slice of jellied
sparrow tongue up my end. Or, he'd fall
asleep, midsentence, conferring with a visiting
head of state or wake after the queen blew
the ceremonial shofar in his royal ear
to find his arm submerged in an enormous
bowl of candied quail eggs. Once, he ordered
a life-size cheese sculpture of himself to run out
into the quiet streets and shout, the moon is the eye
of a potato that won't leave Us alone! Another
time, he interrupted the royal cheesemakers,
their paddles raised, about to spank
the cheese. Mistaking them
for archers, he commanded them to invade
the cheese-hating hamlet of Irregularia. With
an exasperated tear wandering like a madwoman
across the desert of her pale cheek, the princess
wondered out loud one morning what kind
a dunderpate would ever marry the daughter
of such a dunce? Don't fret, whispered the queen
while gliding her shuttle through a loom. At your
bat mitzvah, I'll have my astrologers
persuade the old man to fill your wedding chest
to overflowing. At the bat mitzvah and after
savoring an after-dinner bowl of fermented
whey, the king rose. His high-pitched
edict cut into the sudden hush: Let it be known,
here and abroad, that whosoever can guess
what I'm pondering when the moon crosses
the sun three months hence will have
half my kingdom and this royal wench. Whosoever
guesses wrong will meet--and here he paused to look
down at Themio, his loyal mastiff, who, at that
very moment had lifted his hindmost leg under the dark
oak of the great banquet table and doused
the royal slipper that contained the royal foot
with a fragrant liquid--and the king, bending to pet
his beast, forgot to end his sentence. Though Suffix--
his grand vizier, who had evil eyes and who
had risen through the ranks from stablemucker
to head cheesemaker to closest confidante
of the king--screamed, "meet his maker" over
and over into the hurrahs and laughter.

Encircled by the candlelit crush of a thousand eyes
after the moon had slowly crept across the sun,
Nounio, pressing the magic nose flute to his sniffer,
tiptoed toward the throne. The king woke
with a start. Don't stand there gaping with that
contraption sticking out of your blowhole--what
do you want of Us? Nounio stroked the flute,
begging it to help him guess. Who is this
bungler, demanded the king, and why
are all you watching him play with his artificial
shnoz? Joining
Nounio trembling on the floor, Pronounio,
praying he could hold it in but knowing
otherwise, said, Please Majesty, Nounio
has bravely marched through this darkly
sunny day, nose flute in hand, to win the hand
of the princess. And while the king touched
the tip of a scented cloth to each nostril,
Nounio fainted only to wake in the arms
of Comparativa, a lady in waiting. A scattering
of available suitors, unsure whether
they were risking their necks, kneeled and guessed
while Imperativo the First lifted his handkerchief
in both hands and blew. Then salty Syntax grinning
and Verbio grown even wiser under his tutelage
sailed into the great hall trailing the sunlight
behind them. So handsome and strong that--
when the princess standing next to her father
regarded Verbio as he approached-- her whole being
went watery, but he lunged for her
before her knees buckled, held her in the cradle
of his arms before the king, who had fallen
asleep, and before the queen, who couldn't
keep her own eyes off the grinning
Syntax, and before the court, baffled but,
with the exception of Lord Suffix, eager to break
into the royal cellars to celebrate the hymeneal
union of the third son of the woodsman
and the woodsmaness to the lovely Princess
Adjectiva. Bending to pull his dagger
from the sheath strapped to his ankle, evil
Suffix smiled, but the sailor, quicker
than a shooting star, twisted the blade out of the bony
grip of the assassin and buried the grand vizier
head first into a great wheel of cheese that rolled
out a window into the moat. Pronounio embraced
the couple unable to contain
his delight or the floral undertones
of his digestive travail then hurried
home to relay the blessed news. The grand
vizier is dead, everyone chanted
until Nounio noticed twin birthmarks
on Adjectiva's and Verbio's neck. The king
woke and died. The queen broke
into a sweat confessing she had found
her daughter while foraging for mushrooms
on a woodland path.

Now I know what it is to shudder and dance.
That is the way of the world. Nevertheless,
the reunited siblings fled to rabbinical
monasteries committed to silence
and prayer and no one ever
again spoke to them. Nounio
and Comparativa had many children who
were spoiled for years by Queen Superlativa
and Uncle Syntax the First who sailed in
and out of their lives unable to keep
their hands off each other for more
than the moment it takes a skipping
stone to slip
into water.

§ § §

Roger Weingarten is the author of eight collections of poetry including Ghost Wrestling, Infant Bonds of Joy, Shadow Shadow, The Vermont Suicides, and Ethan Benjamin Boldt. His poems have appeared in APR, The New Yorker, Poetry, The New Republic, and The Kenyon Review, among many others.

He has co-edited four poetry anthologies, including New American Poets of the ‘90s, Poets of the New Century, and, forthcoming, Manthology: Poems of the Male Experience. He edits the Invisible Cities Press Poetry Series.

His awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Award and an Ingram Merrill Award in Literature.

He has taught and read at writers’ conferences and poetry festivals, nationally and internationally. He founded and teaches in the MFA in Writing and the Postgraduate Writers’ Conference at Vermont College.

GO TO NEXT PAGE