Hello,
This is another fun poetry/verse piece, similar to ‘The Drive Home’
As you’ll see, I’ve placed a few images and GIFs throughout. But ultimately, I envision this as an illustrated piece. Perhaps a book.
If you know someone you think might have the skill and inclination to help, please do reach out and introduce us.
You may also notice that this is the FIFTH of my 90% finished pieces, and I did promise that once I published five I would announce the first of my new series.
I will do so tomorrow. I’ve also decided that tomorrow, in addition to announcing what the series is, that paid subscribers will get access to the first episode. Paid subscriptions are either $5 a month, or $50 for a year. Ahem…
I will as previously announced begin publishing both series to all subscribers once I’ve published twenty of my backlog pieces.
Yianni Agisilaou
30 June, 2022.
How many kings can you fit on a horse?
Life can be trying, such problems it brings.
So sometimes I think of ridiculous things.
And the screwiest thing one can ponder, of course.
Is just how many kings you could fit on a horse?
Now I think that’s dotty, you may disagree.
But is it a million, a thousand, or three?
Most horses have one king bestriding their back.
But if bidden could steeds be more ridden than that?
Did you know? (I did not) This fact about kings. That their passions are pricked by most frivolous things. Like if you’re Castilian or Saxon or Norse. Or just how many kings one might fit on a horse.
A scientist keen to put things to the test,
I called out for kings, from the east to the west.
But the weight of their duties had left me quite glum. Most indubitably dubious any would come.
So imagine my shock at what then I laid eyes on.
A sword then a steed fiercely pierced the horizon.
Conversant in blandishment, standard outlandish.
I eyeballed the flag, was it English or Frankish?
My extant composure completely reversed. My
vocab absconded, unnerved and coerced.
The rider approached me, I wished I’d rehearsed. He
unhorsed and I hoarsely rasped, “Richard the first?!”
“In the flesh! As your peer, so comport yourself merrily.”
My jaw hit the floor. “You’re here voluntarily?”
“Verily, kings must give swiftest recourse.
In such paramount questions of king and of horse.”
Still unsteady and heady at Richard’s arrival.
The next left me fearing my very survival.
With grace of the Bolshoi, he pinned me down frontal.
A roar, paws, and claws; ‘twas the king of the jungle!
Dread punctured me deep with its whimsical sting.
Of both lacking and having too much of a thing.
Scared stiff with less chill than a sackful of cats.
But the chill in my soul more than made up for that!
As I prepped for my maker and mumbled my prayers.
King Richard’s lion heart quelled the affair. For
quite missed on my list of ways out of this strife.
He confronted the lion, and quipped “How goes the wife?”
“How goes the jungle?!”
”Fab. How goes my heart?”
(They needled each other both playing their part.)
“What fortune to meet here!” said Richard, “Bizarre!”
“Brother, bend my ear to what brings you so far!”
Hushed words did ensue ‘twixt the two kings before us.
A whisper, an answer; then both roared in chorus.
“To know combien1 kings on a horse could prevail.
Until one extra king caused the whole thing to fail!”
A third visitant to our posse arrived.
Young, thin with black skin and with ebony eyes,
He eyed up the trio: King, lion, and I.
The first of our triptych enquiring to why.
“Young stranger, what brings you such distance? Perforce?”
“Outrageous! My egress can never be forced.”
Explaining his presence, most absent remorses, asked
“Is this the thing with the kings and the horses?.”
“Indeed” said King Richard, “A wonderful thing.”
Whilst extending his arm, and presenting his ring.
“Dig deep in your memory, herald, and strive,
to give word as to just when your king might arrive.”
Raising himself to a towering height.
Then unfurling his robes and revealing his might.
The lion amazed, turned to Richard and said, “You
do not know of Shaka? Great king of the Zulu?”
“There’s no need” said Shaka, “‘Tis not my concern.
The most miserly scope of the things you have learned.
You invade and crusade, are of meekness bereft.
Maybe conquer the kingdom of ‘Give-It-A-Rest’
Your ignorance doesn’t mean your realm is best.
My story, and glory unknown in the west.
I’m Shaka, a king. Doubt me? Okungalun-gile!
You deride? I’ll decide if we parley or melee.”
Then the querulous quarrel on who should know who.
Was disrupted, corrupted, constructed anew.
As the fourth arrivee left the foes holding hands. As
the Venn diagram of their manship expanded.
Who could forge such accord when their concord was least?
None but Catherine the Great, striding in from the east.
Heart pure as spring water, drunk at the source.
In her thick Russian brogue yelled “I come for the horse!”
“Oh no!” uttered Richard, “No good can this bring!
It’s KINGS on a horse not the opposite thing!
I don’t think you’d bear it. You have to be strong.
Forget it! No Queens! The whole thing will be wrong!”
Catherine had come much too far for this thing.
To lose horse-mounting time to misogynist kings.
“They call me ‘The Great’ for I’m utmost and splendid.
Wish to best me? Then test me. You think I’m outgendered?!
Challenged, King Richard lunged at her but missed.
As she shifted, then gripted his arms, with a twist.
He aggressed, she digressed with a parried attack.
Relocating his wrists to the small of his back.
“Uncle!” the king hollered, “Uncle I say!”
With great force, both the queen and her horse replied “Neigh”
“I’d LOVE to let go, but for ‘Uncle’ I shan’t”. He
resisted, she twisted, he blurted out “Auntie!”
“No drawbridge but pride would prohibit a Queen? Tis
no testicle-quest, nor contingent on penis?
Come regents. Together let’s strap on a muzzle.
Pile onto this creature and vanquish this puzzle!”
Balance of power.
As I stared at these newly collaborative consuls.
A furry of worry tugged sharp on my tonsils.
Such people whose names adorned buildings and books.
I worried this kitchen had too many cooks.
On the dot with a cadence of squabble and frown. Came
the rhythmical butting of crown against crown.
Like a game of Top Trumps with all rankings the same.
Each in turn, inert, made a play for the rein.
Richard was first to hold court and coerce.
”I declare myself leader, all else is perverse.
Aside that in matters of horse I’m well versed
My title demands it. I’m Richard the First!”
Shaka protested, “You obstinate fool!
And since ye be so fond of ordinal rules.
Be cursed in your firstness, mere Richard alone!
Until Richard II ascends to the throne!”
The lion stepped in, “I’ll go first I’m admired. And can you all hurry, I’m really quite tired.” Such folly left Shaka in waters uncharted. Were all these kings fools or just those lionhearted?
“You’re joking” yelled Shaka. “You weigh half a ton! Once you jump aboard the whole thing will be done! The horse must stay standing, of that there’s no doubt. Not splayed like a pancake with hooves poking out!”
Sensing an opening, to wrest the dispute.
By the fact she was only ‘The Great’ by repute,
yet in stature and weight she was nimble and light.
Catherine ventured ‘a sleight of the slight’
“Through our biting of thumb and our gnashing of tooth.
Our quarrels here verily show us the truth
The least great as to weight, is our path to these prizes.
Behold! Problem solved! I am half of your sizes!
Shaka concurred, “I say Catherine goes first.
Then each in our ascending order of girth.”
At this, Catherine sought now to press home the win.
As she flounced then denounced the whole anti-queen thing.
To a crowd nonexistent, she yelled “Now I’M first? Yet
mere moments ago my existence was cursed!
When the head musketeer of this convoy of rubes,
was fit to reject me because of my boobs!!
Catherine pressed home her breast point, bare riffing and jiving.
While kings upon ‘kings’ upon Kings were arriving.
Kings of all centuries, kings of all shades.
Kings metaphorical, literal, made.
Appearing and cheering both near and afar.
Came Regina and BB King with their guitars.
And thanking those round him, gyrating his pelvis.
The peer of these new bandoliers, known as Elvis.
Next came Jesus: king of kings, exemplar of faith.
Alongside, assuaging him, Henry the Eighth.
“..just to force a divorce sir, you’ve nothing to fear.
Truth be told it was all Martin Luther’s idea!”
“Did I hear my name called?”, I heard a King say.
Turning one-eighty, there stood MLK.
Whose arrival as always caused lines to be blurred
On which kings should be quiet and which should be heard.
Kings by the hundreds poured into our midst.
Kings Arthur and Kunta; an unending list.
And the full stop atop this unstoppable throng.
A gorilla long billed by the name of King Kong.
My kingdom for a horse.
Standing invisible, ever unheard.
The poor horse in question then uttered a word.
“You ask far too much, if you mount me I’ll fall.
I trust you’ll be prudent. I can’t bear you all!”
Each saw the arrival of rivals and hence, with
all needing to lead and yet none of them dense.
In a sudden revisal dispensed with pretence, and
a freestyle pile-on of the bronco commenced!
The sight that beheld me, I do not hold light.
Ambition and stubbornness, conquest and might.
Unquenchable thirst and unstoppable force.
As king after King tried to jump on the horse.
Arguments, battles of privilege and rank.
As to who had the stirrups and who’d hold the flank.
Seventeen kings on the length of the rein.
The lion bore six more stowed deep in his mane.
The wretched horse sported a towering hump.
Of regents and climbers piled high on its rump.
And dextrously scaling the top of the smother.
A recent arrival, in Donkey Kong’s brother.
A beast of great burden, the salt of the Earth, was
now laden with seekers all seeking a berth on
this hydra-like gory grotesque of a thing.
And atop every one of them me, Robert King.
The horse finally buckled, first groaning then creaking.
My surroundings abandoned me; wobbling, streaking.
And as King upon regent fell flat in the mud.
I found myself back in my life with a THUD.
Life requires balance, in word and in deed.
And glory adheres to both rider and steed.
And when stories are gloried on history’s stage.
One must not forget the import of the page.
Beneath kings and rulers who strive to be great.
Live anonymous wretches resigned to their fate.
And since kingdoms that rise must then fall in due courses.
Kings’ minds must reside in the hides of their horses.
Yianni Agisilaou - 30 June, 2022
SHARING is CARING
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French for ‘how many’. I needed a one word version for it, and English just doesn’t have one!