The Court Poet

Modesty Unbound

Poets certainly know of great heights … but none higher than in the service of a King … in a royal household.  Such bards held the fate of the nation in their poetic inspiration … and brought into the presence of the King … such refinement … like new clothes … that opened up the monarch's perceptions of the unfolding nature of life in the kingdom. Mind and poetry … a strange relation of understanding … with the attendant impulses of the passion … that receive from it … and creates of itself … a feel … or notion about things.

 

A King is never blamed for being assuming … about himself … his place in the life of his people … and history. Our literature on faith refers to such assumptions … like an ascension … into the higher realms of light and purpose in life. Certainly in the place and location of his expression … as the titular head of the kingdom … such fancies … or individual truth of affective sentiments … become the legislative equivalent of decrees … based on the love held for the personality of the King … by the people. Its a love that is symbiotic in some way.

 

And its the job of the court poet to mold such a personality … as the thoroughfare of the kingdom's venture into the experiences of life. Like his cousin the shaman … in the tribal outback … the court poet caters to the basic need of praise … motivation … and inspiration … for the way the King may be moved by his volition to act on values and principles. But more than that … in a lifestyle accustomed to the finery of the civilized lifestyle … the poet must also stand up to the impulses of reason and logic in the community.

 

Over the years … our monarchies have grown into considerable sophistication … in the way they manage the titular head … along with ministers … armies … and the preservation of the commonwealth … in the scepter of royal command as the person whose word … is the mover of minds of the people. It no doubt takes place today … in a line of practice of the principles … in every nation that relies on a monarch … or constitutional head.

 

Away from the grandeur of royalty …  an individual …  sometimes finds … in the cellar of our longings … the simple truth … that man is led by man … in virtually all matters of life and death. There's the King … the bishop … the minister;  all men … dressed for the part … whose mind and intellect is simply trained by service … into a vocation … that determines the fates and destinies of societies in the place where we live. And when we find that spot in us …  it hopes to come to terms with the idea.

 

In the humanity experience … we trust our bodies to the doctor … our soul to the pastor … and our children to God. We do it unmindful … for fear that if we questioned the credentials of the other … we will be lost as to achievement … and the continuity of our social progression of natures. We are already into a commitment from the day we are born … and it propels us like a wheel … on the trams on mainstreet. Do we pause to inquire? Raise our commitments to a greater will of volition … or do we drift in the currents of its popular appeals?

 

The companionship of the ladies in life … brings to every man … the ovarian alternative of reproduction possibilities. The promise that we can be born again … make things better … and we find such messages caressed into our faith systems … like so many petals of gentle persuasion … on a mind … that has not come to discern and to know of such possibilities as facts. As a result we form an obsession with it … with the daily assuage … or peck on the cheek … of its continued relevance. Is there someway we can grow into it … with heart and mind?

 

What I'm asking is … ' Do we always have to do it with a trick?' An instrument of some kind is obviously needed. A grievance winds its way into subtle vengeance … a hope finds a fountain of orgasmic support for its continued faith … a love seeks the optimism of all possibilities. But is man merely defined by such? Is it not possible to raise an understanding of the phenomenon we engage … and merge with its inspiration in a volitional act of understanding of its will?

 

Its curious to find that in the midst of such inspirational inquiries … we return to the King in the cellar of our longings … to create new concerns of view we have not done before. Why can't I be King? Of the domain of my personality … the kingdom of my wishes … and the boulevard of my hopes. King? Like maybe Oberon in … Shakespeare's ' A mid-summer night's dream? ' A challenge for the throne indeed … inspired I'm sure by the pen of the bard … whose virtuoso with colors … scents … dreams … and desires … produce a fruit … like none we have seen before … for we have never been its care taker.

 

Indic stories tell of the man … whipped up by storms … the wiles of women … and the vagaries of fortune … to finally come face to face with his wailing wall. And there to find the incredible notion of suggestion that it was all done for him. For his benefit and understanding … his joys of discovery … of a mystery that would not have otherwise been possible to discover by simply the will and hands of one man … on the potter's wheel of creation.

 

It comes in stages … the smile on the cashier at the store … the neighbor in the next flat … and then perhaps the shower of affirmation by an old girlfriend … we thought we would never see again. And then … it removes the veils from the eyes … and the man sees who and what he is … the incredible magic of light … sound … and meaning … that weave themselves into a basket of bountifulness … in which he is both the giver and the receiver of gifts. Surprise? Indeed … and perhaps to wonder if he was at one time the poet to King Chandragupta Maurya of the Indic empire. Naaahhh!