1
What antecedents could legitimize
The destiny befalling me anon?
Give me a minute to epitomize
The sequence of events that brought it on.
2
When unto Ung I’d haply made my way,
I met Queen Udi posing as if she
Had been a common student, day by day
Attending at the university.
3
Intrigues and jeopardies beleaguered us
For three long years, but we survived them all.
All these misfortunes I shan’t here discuss.
To do so would my nunnish tale forestall.
4
Suffice it rather just to let me state
That she and I eventually were wed
In year three ninety, on the fifteenth date.
I was not King, Prime Minister instead.
5
Queen Udi had the ancestry and wit
All by herself to turn the royal helm
And guide the argosy of state as it
Did navigate the oceans of the realm.
6
With fatalism, I myself resigned
Unto my ministeriality.
Far be it from the passions of my mind
To try to contravene reality.
7
But with the Jvashnas’ fall and Ub annexed,
The Vrikshayas sought venues fresh and new
According to the articles and text
That constitute the charter that they drew.
8
So Ajinblambia had come to Ung
And wooed the Queen and forced me from her bed,
Supplanting me and climbing to the rung
Atop Ung’s ladder as Ung’s highest head.
9
Once nominated to be royal King,
Tall Ajinblambia at once decreed
That I be cloistered in the novice wing
Of the famed nunnery, and don the weed
10
Of black and white that nuns are wont to wear.
A century remained me to be nun.
A century devoted to meek prayer,
While Ajinblambia would be the Sun
11
Of the Nyatic planet we inhabit,
She in her crimson, in her miniver,
I in my wimple, guimpe and swishing habit.
She as the King of her own Guinevere,
12
I as a nun’s attendant and right hand.
Who was there who could contradict her rule?
Who could her edicts glibly countermand?
There was nought for it but to mewl and pule.
13
At any rate, the abbess had agreed
To come by super-jet to meet the King
And speak of the ennunment, and to plead
Her cause as it concerned the tacit thing
14
Whereunto on the phone they did allude,
The question of my sexuality.
For in the convent for me to intrude
Were dyed with shades of illegality.
15
That evening I in Udi’s room was locked,
For King and Queen perhaps were warily
Aware that I might some way out concoct,
A prospect that they both viewed charily.
16
The morning was delightful, full of cheer.
We three ate cutlets, melons and fresh eggs.
But as the end of afternoon did near,
The Queen did bind again my arms and legs.
17
She placed the bit and shod me in the mask,
For Olezconia’d requested I be tied,
For she sought quickly to perform the task
Of sacring my new nunhood at her side.
18
’Twas fourish by our own chronometry.
We have our measures and we have our times,
Our calculus and trigonometry.
We even have our scansion and our rhymes.
19
So porcellanously upon my knees
I stood like to a china figurine,
My neck was lengthened and the mask did squeeze,
So taut the cords were tightened by the Queen.
20
The royal ladies on the chaise had sat,
And chattered as they waited for the nun.
The maid-in-waiting, Stlembi, soon thereat
Came to announce unto the royal one
21
A guest arrived with Thrulxmarj, the chauffeur,
Now standing just outside the office door.
“Milady, should I go without to her,
And fetch her here, O Majesty, before
22
Yourself and our new King. Be kind. Say whether.”
The Queen instructed Stlembi, “Yes, make haste.”
The maid-in-waiting, Stlembi, curtseyed nether,
And back into the corridor then raced.
23
A moment later that most awesome nun,
The abbess, Olezconia, appeared.
Her height was seven feet, a stately one
Whom everyone who knew her deeply feared.
24
Her face was sweet and mild. Her skin was cream.
Her lips were petals, lavender her breath.
She was a gracious goddess in a dream.
You’d never guess her limbs could have dealt death.
25
For underneath her habit, there was strength.
She was athletic and gymnastic too.
She, with facility, walked any length,
And could have run it if she’d wanted to.
26
So, to outsiders, like the King and Queen,
Her pious visage shone with grace and light
But to the nuns and postulants who’d seen
Her real nature, she embodied fright.
27
I never have attempted to deny
That I personified timidity;
When Olezconia would come nearby
I’d flinch and quake with pellucidity,
28
For I was not afraid to be afraid
Of such a formidable female foe,
Let all perceive that I my homage paid,
Appreciate that I my place did know.
29
The royal ladies did receive the nun
With every courtesy and all respect.
Her tallness and the Vrikshaya’s were one,
A difference one hardly could detect,
30
But Udi was much shorter, quite petite,
By standards of comparison in Ung.
If you could see the ladies on the street,
You’d think that aunts and niece had come among
31
The throngs of passers-by who walked about.
Still Udi topped me by an inch or two.
Who thus was I the governance to flout
That Olezconia’d acceded to,
32
Whenas those ladies doubtless rightly thought
That I was but a youngster in their midst?
Were I to show defiance, I’d be taught,
“Thou must be punished for the deeds thou didst.”
33
The royal pair upon the chaise remained,
While Stlembi brought a chair to place nearby,
And then departed, while the Queen explained
I had been bound when that the hour drew nigh.
34
The nun complained that an impediment
Encumbered my ennunment. She was loth
To muddy crystal waters with such sediment,
Describing with immodesty to both
35
The problem that by nature I did pose.
Defdefa Convent had its sacred law.
“What can be done, do you, O King, suppose,
To remedy and rectify the flaw?”
36
I wist not that whereof the royals spoke,
For they did posit riddles, rhymes and puns.
They in the folds of pedantry did cloak
Their answers to most questions of the nun’s.
37
I overhead the Vrikshaya permit
Unto the nun pursuit of any course
She reckoned necessary, to commit
Me to the convent, even were it force.
38
I knew that guarding me tenaciously,
The nun would ineluctably prevail.
’Twere utterly inefficaciously
That I’d try flight, for surely I would fail.
39
So to my fate I did myself resign.
The nun seemed happy with the royal grants,
Agreeing to the general design,
To all the do’s and don’t’s and shalls and shan’t’s
40
That royal and religious rules required.
So Olezconia did sacre me as nun,
Adopting me, as if she’d been inspired
By highest Heaven and its dazzling Sun.
41
She sprinkled me with chrism, burning myrrh
And frankincense, and chanting olden prayer.
She knelt and then herself she did bestir
With an inscrutable and mystic air,
42
Returning to the presence of the pair
Who had invited her to be their guest.
Queen Udi called to see what hearty fare
The nearest palace kitchen could suggest,
43
Anon brought Pixidixia a cart,
A robot waitress with a living maid,
And she set forth a banquet with great art
Upon a table servants had conveyed
44
And placed before the triad of grand dames.
They supped congenially on grouse and quail,
Kept warm above a brazier with soft flames,
And wine kept chilly in an icy pail.
45
When supper had been eaten, Udi called
The porters, Jorbing and Omushca, to.
A stately palanquin they thither hauled
And placed it next to me without ado.
46
Next they upraised me and put me inside,
The gold-poled sumptuous sedan they’d brought,
Without disturbing scarves about me tied,
For them the Queen most carefully had taught.
47
The cushions they emplaced below my knees
And underneath my ankles as before.
As if I’d been a feather in the breeze,
They bore me off from out the royal door
48
Into the regal corridor without,
As Sister Olezconia took charge
And strode beside, inspecting all about,
As mistress and commandress by and large.
49
“Room ninety-six-o-one,” she did instruct,
And Jorbing and Omushca did obey.
Unto a lift now they the litter trucked
And up we went without pause or delay.
50
On ninety-six, the four of us got out,
And to the foresaid room we quickly went.
This was a lavish room, without a doubt,
A room oft vacant that for guests was meant.
51
There Jorbing and Omushca set the coach
Upon the high-pile carpet on the floor.
No conversation did the abbess broach.
She merely smiled as they went out the door.
52
They left me kneeling on the costly rug
And took the palanquin by its gold poles.
Not half a millimeter might I tug
And saw but little through the mask’s wee holes.
53
However, Olezconia undid
My bonds and mask, and helped withdraw the bit
That in my buccal cavity was hid,
And I was free and easy just a whit.
54
I’d been in bonds a fleeting pair of hours,
And so retained my freshness and élan,
A measure of my customary powers.
I was nor sore nor bruised, nor ill nor wan.
55
Until that time, I had accepted all
That had transpired anent my lifelong nunning.
Still, I decided once again to call
Upon the royals, using wiles and cunning.
56
So in a second when the lofty nun
Was looking for an object in her purse,
I swiftly to the corridor did run.
A vision of escape fain did I nurse.
57
As by the bank of elevators, I,
On cheetah’s footpads coursing, did depress
Each button that was present to the eye,
I hoped to find one open and express
58
That would deliver me with all due speed
Unto another floor, but they all lagged.
Their doors slid not apart, despite my need,
And seemed to wait as if they sagged or flagged.
59
So I hied past, and found another door,
The entrance to a stairwell that I knew.
The door was locked. “Oh, drat!” I vainly swore.
I turned upon a heel for to review
60
The elevators now, if haply they,
At last, were opening, and so they were.
So I sprang in. My heart was blithe and gay,
As I pressed for the floor I did prefer.
61
The sliding doors were sluggish once again.
They stood immobile just a trice too long,
So Olezconia could enter then
And grasp my nape with fingers svelte but strong,
62
As if she’d been a pussy fetching home
Her kitten, with her teeth in cervix fur.
Thus that young cat might hardly farther roam,
But must go with the one that mothered her.
63
The abbess marched me right back to the room
And threw me down upon the spacious bed.
My minute of elation now was gloom.
For Olezconia her fingers wed
64
With mine, as if a zipper she had zipped,
And on the counterpane she pressed me hard.
With unbelievably strong hands she gripped,
And all my efforts did with ease retard.
65
“If one more time you misbehave or flout
The canon that I have imposed on you,
You should not entertain the slightest doubt
Your punishment will meted be as due.
66
I guarantee you all the way you’ll go
To Fwascren bound and gagged aboard the train.
Nor respite nor relief will you then know
Until we reach the convent on the plain.”
67
“But Sister Olezconia I crave
A minute with the royal Queen and King.
I really didn’t seek to misbehave.
I merely will with them discuss a thing:”
68
“No further conversations will there be.
Decisions have been made and they will stand.
Besides the King and Queen have gone to see
An opera in Égshirvazi planned
69
To be performed tonight, but you and I
Must soon lie down and get a good night’s sleep.
Quite early must we rise. The hour is nigh.
The train is an appointment we must keep.
70
Unto a bedpost she did lock my wrist,
Lest in the night I slip from out the room.
Just whither I would go I scarcely wist.
She’d sealed the lovely bedroom like a tomb.
71
Cerulean foreglimpses of bright day
Were at the window early in the morn,
And afterwards in glorious array,
Far in the orient, the Sun was born.
72
With all due speed I bathed and combed my hair.
Then dressed myself in habit and in veil.
The lofty nun and I ate simple fare.
Soon we went out. A cab she did not hail.
73
She wished to stroll th