Twenty Leagues East of Bashida

Twenty Leagues East of Bashida

In Jendaketch jeweled sparrows fetch
From mouths of tigers roaming wild
Fragrant flowers bound in bowers
That calm the cross and rouse the mild.

What meets the eyes at each sunrise
Is vivid vast vitality
Of sparrows flight chasing the night
From languished land and slumb'ring sea

With wings inlaid with gold and jade
And beaks of sterling silver clad
Their sparkling feet, rubies replete,
Awaken all and myriad.

And in the trees of opal leaves
Are nests built of iridium
Where lustrous chicks gnaw sapphire sticks
And pebbles of beryllium

In rare refrain the birds explain,
And in our minds an image etch
Why beast and day meekly obey
The jeweled sparrows of Jendaketch.





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This is my example of a March 2010 contest entry:

http://www.neopoet.com/forum/35813-2010-march-contest-rules

To recap, the rules are as follows:

Alliteration

    * No more than 20 lines, excluding title
    * An example of alliteration in at least 5 of the lines
    * No meter constraints
    * Subject = Sparrows

I decided to go with tetrameter and a rhyme scheme of AA,B,CC,B similar to some of the work Ian (http://www.neopoet.com/tam-chanter) has done as I felt that pattern and pacing lent itself to the story being told.

There is not a lot else going on in this poem.  It describes a place in Flatearth and as such is couched in surrealism and downright fancy.  There's no message behind this, I was just looking to get an idea down and decided to fit it into the constraints of the Mach contest.

Killing two (2) birds with one stone if I may extend the analogy.

Thoughts and comments are welcome.  I know this has some rough spots, one of the major one's being the 4th stanza and deciding if it need to be scrapped and replaced with something else, perhaps a companion stanza to more fully illustrate stanza 5.

I'm thinking on it, any input is welcome.