Electra Movie Camera image by Joe Haput CC BY-SA
Ella and Eidelvard: Cantos I-V
by Cosmic Poet Simon Pole
I
Bowls upon the altar smoked,
Coals beneath them fires stoked,
Blood had stained the table-top,
More onto the pavement dropped,
Priests incanted horrid rites;
Columns marching out of night
Brought the victims two-by-two,
Hatless and unshod of shoe,
By concoction numbed to die,
When stars align in the sky.
Ready is the High Priest’s knife
To carve out the seat of life.
II
But over the plaza turned,
Where the web of torches burned,
On wings of a reptile steed,
Whose toothless beak made a screed
Lost amid the chanting horde,
A wise and watchful warlord.
Armoured like a plated beast,
In leather and metal creased,
Two-bladed axe on his back,
Biding his time to attack.
A chance he sees: through the mists,
A woman her doom resists.
III
Some king’s favoured daughter she,
Of her captors breaking free,
Chaos seeding on the walk,
Past the drugged who cannot talk,
Shapeless garments letting drop
To reveal a chain-mail top,
Sandaled feet, hidden daggers,
Whose swift use made to stagger
Pursuing priests, down they go,
As in streaks her blond hair flows.
At the end, in air she leaps,
Above the throng, hundreds deep.
IV
In that moment dipped the bird,
On purring wings, barely heard,
Its master his hand extends
For the jumper, who unbends
Her body coiled, reaching high
To link fingers in the sky.
They make the bond, hands are clasped,
To his person is she grasped,
And then behind slips to sit
On the saddle, while the bit
In knife-hooked mouth of the steed
Tugs he, and away they speed.
V
Away from towns, settled zones,
Across rivers, far they’ve flown,
Skirting mountains, skimming hills
Where rough waters fall in rills,
To a place uncut by road,
Or stone bridge, neither abode
Of shepherd nor sowing-hand.
Concealed by leaves, in a stand
Of mighty pines, rose a fort,
Where in pairs guards pace athwart
Its wooded walls—there they glide,
And in stalls the spent steed hide.