"Another World" by Frances Monro

Another World

by

Che Monro

2005 

Listen to me!

The ancient street-beggar cried in broken Italian.

My legion fought with Caesar in Gaul.

We broke the druid-temple and killed the priests

laughing at their curse that damned our souls

to wander between the worlds forever.

We marched through the forest

closed in by the mists and one by one

my comrades disappeared

until I was alone, lost in the mist.

*

The sun rose out of thin mist

on rocky, open ground

and I awoke, stiff, cold.

I chose a direction and marched

over the barren plain

In the distance a grove of thorn trees

closer, men, bodies, crucified on

the trees. Bodies rotting,

the smell of a battle field.

A giant arose from the rocks

at the entrance to a grotto

concealed among those gruesome thorn trees.

Broad shouldered, powerfully muscled, filthy

a strong smell of sweat and blood and beast

His head that of an ox,

spittle dripping from a moist muzzle.

He charged, I dodged among the rocks

his battle-cry ringing in my ears

"Justice!"

Fleeing, voices called to me

from the trees, rottting bodies

begging me not to desert them,

the voices those of my comrades,

my friends, my family.

I ran and did not look back.

Lest you think me utterly craven,

let it be said that the brute

was easily twice a mortal man's height

and broad with it.

He weilded a sword of bronze,

glowing like butter,

fully as tall as me from head to toe.

This monster's like has not been seen

since ancient times.

Not a mortal's doom to slay such a creature

Such deeds are reserved for great heroes,

sons of the Gods themselves

Not such as I. I ran for my life

and the monster's mocking laughter

rang out behind me.

*

That night I slept wrapped in my blanket

in the deep night of the forest

under unfamiliar stars.  

I heard a sound, a splashing, and awoke

to find the world filled with moonlight

bright and ghostly.

Leaving my gear I crept through the trees

their trunks pale and slender as limbs

till I came to a bank overlooking a pond

where three maidens bathed

in the moonlight.

It was their splashing and laughter

that had awoken me

and now the sight of their

naked forms glowing palely

in the moonlight aroused me

I charged down the bank

aflame with the desire

to catch one of the women

and have my way with her.

The women looked up in alarm

and fled into the forest

swift and graceful as deer,

a confusion of moonlight

on pale flesh and shadow

dark as midnight.

At first it seemed that

I must lose them completely

for they ran swiftly and silently

as true forest creatures

while I cursed and stumbled,

running into trees and

crashing over branches

cursing and falling in the darkness.

Whenever I seemed to have

lost the women there would

be a cry or a giggle in the distance

or a glimpse of pale skin lit by

moonlight on the far side of

a forest glade until it seemed

almost as if they were leading me on.

I seemed to have run in circles

half the night, until, utterly

exhausted, I was tempted to

give up the chase.

Suddenly I saw one of the fairy women

standing clear before a rock face.

As I approached her she slipped

into the shadow of a grotto

and I followed a step behind,

reaching out to take hold

of her at last.

*

That was how I came to wear

a slave collar of fairy silver

servant and plaything of my mistress by day

companion to the balls and soirees of the evening

and at night the victim and perpetrator

of the horrors and painful delights of her bedchamber.

Melisune.

Such sweet poison.

She was like no other woman, and like every other woman

Her delights were ecstacy and cruelty

Her pleasure powerful and terrible and wonderful

and I will speak of her no more.

We lived beneath the hollow hills of that land

with the many spirits and fey-folk of that place.

There were many other humans there as well,

people from strange lands bewitched and entrapped

much as I was myself.

Gradually I came to realize that all the finery and riches,

the silks and palaces, the gold and jewelery

was so much illusion.

These people lived a life much lower even

than the Gauls or Germans.

Their tools were wood and stone for the most part

their forts and palaces simply dirty burrows

beneath the ground. Their highest king was

simply one who had learned the art of smelting

copper into bronze - a transformation that they

regarded as an incredible sorcery.

They are in truth a very slothful race
much troubled by langour and melancholy
too lazy even to farm the land
unless they can take captives
to do it for them.
Cheifly they live by hunting the forest
and gathering herbs and fruits growing there

They make a happy feast on half cooked meats
in the darkness of their barrows
transforming them by illusion 
into fabulous delicacies and shining palaces
of such splendour  that
one hardly knows reality from fantasy.
Some of them seem as real as you or I
while others appear to be of a more aethereal nature.
They mix quite freely with ghosts and spirits
and indeed made no distinction
between the living and the dead. 

I must have lived there a six-month or more

before my mistress tired of me and threw me out

crying that she would send me home

and see how I liked it.

It seems to me that I tumbled through the air

and fell to the ground in this place.

*

What is the name of this city with it's shining towers

taller even than those of Rome?

What place is this where streets

and plazas echo with the growls and roars

of savage metal beasts, where the women wear

outlandish and immodest garb?

What barbarian tongue does the thronging

crowd speak and what masters do

they serve, hurrying back and forth

through the streets at midday?

Do the shining chariots gliding across

the sky carry living Gods as was said of old?

Is this place Olympus? Or the underworld?

And why, oh why, will no-one hear my tale

but rather brush past me on their inscruitable business.

Listen to me! I come from another world

Why does no-one believe me?

THE END