“Oh! Illustrious Beacon of the Saljuk Empire!
Pray! Let me so much as I might deign to sing sans lyre!
The WORD is out: Your Eminence’s proscribed by penal mettle:
The Republic’s Procureur Général wants you in pyre!”

The Ruba’iyat of Créteil Lake – Part Eighteen

Even as the lower rubbed its dazed eyes over Her hillocks
The light-foot Lass of Lahore made her way past the boating docks
Past the Marie’s dank reedy banks over Her heaving breast
Tip-toeing over the complaining boards of Her nose-bridge locks

Hugging a bottle labeled “OMAR” where Her bust cut an arc -
A left-behind lame garden warbler tweeted its dirge dark
While the doe-eyed Lass tilted the bottle at the water’s edge -
Her own secret message to save the Sufi Khayyam from wreck:

“Oh! Illustrious Beacon of the Saljuk Empire!
Pray! Let me so much as I might deign to sing sans lyre!
The WORD is out: Your Eminence’s proscribed by penal mettle:
The Republic’s Procureur Général wants you in pyre!”

“Your humble sister begs your esteemed bardic indulgence:
Two fitful summers gone past we did cross each other’s presence
Me a mere slip of a girl from yon Ghaznavid Empire
Heard the clamorous reed warbler’s Himalayan penance!”

“This bottle with the missive I know the Lady of the Lake
Will to you waft: tidings dire as to keep me awake
Through bitterly biting lonesome nights you stumble and rove:
Take heed! POLICE cycle-brigades have tripled round the lake!”

© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014