The Polifonix Poems and Other Verses

By Phyllis Ann Karr

The leading poems were written during my years as "Polifonix of Armorica" in the Society for Creative Anachronism, Barony of the Flame. There follow a number of occasional poems, most of them in traditional rhyme and rhythm patterns, on assorted subjects whimsical or melancholy. The volume ends with four narratives in verse, one in Tennysonian style associating Guenevere, retired to a convent, experiencing a vision of the Holy Grail, one recounting Etruscan legend as a young Lord Byron might have told it, one describing a mermaid's vengeance for a wrong done to her foster-child, and the last revisiting the fall of the Round Table as MAD Magazine might have seen it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Phyllis Ann Karr
• Release date: Mar 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005280079

Phyllis Ann Karr

Born 1944, death date not yet established. Lifelong fictioneer, primary publisher for the last few decades Wildside Press. Savoyard (fan only, non-singing), Droodophile, etc.Pictured with my beloved husband Clifton Alfred Hoyt, who among other things invented a means of measuring gas in tenths of a gallon when pumped into your car. He moved out of his body in 2005. (Note: that's ALFRED, not "Albert," as some places seem to have it erroneously.I once had a poor little website. It got eaten by some Japanese(?) concern peddling -- as nearly as I could make out -- cosmetics. As nearly as I could see, it had never profited me; and as of today, it seems as nearly as I can see to have vanished. Now I leave it all to Wikipedia (which may not always be reliable), Amazon, and Smashwords.Throughout my life (77 years and counting), every time I have tried to blow my own trumpet, somebody has thrown heavy lumps of discouragement into its bell. Now I am like someone shipwrecked on a desert island with several cases of pop, reams of paper, and sharpened pencils, who, after drinking up each bottle, puts in a message and tosses it into the ocean. A few of these messages may eventually be picked up; and, since it will probably be too late for the writer, at least let the message itself give a little enjoyment to the finder.in February 2022 I was appalled to find that somehow -- who was responsible for the goof may never be known -- the dollar ninety-nine cents I thought I had listed for my "Polifonix Poems" message-in-bottle had got transmogrified to a hundred and ninety-nine dollars!! I don't think there is any newly published and/or currently available volume of verse anywhere in the world worth that kind of asking price, unless perhaps it were privately printed on thin sheets of beaten gold and bound in unicorn hide. Apologies to anyone who may have glimpsed that absurd $199.00 and pictured me as endowed with an ego bigger than Mount Everest. Although leaving the price to the purchaser amounts to "free," that's much better than risking such a ridiculously out-of-line price tag by mistake; and I am, after all, pretty well just tossing out messages in bottles.

Book preview

THE POLIFONIX POEMS

And Other Verses

by

Phyllis Ann Karr

Polifonix of Armorica in The Society for Creative Anachronism

Contents

I. The Polifonix Poems

II. Ragout (miscellaneous verses)

III. Narrative Poems

An Idyll of the Grail

Tanchaquil

Perran Sands

The Last Idle of the King

Notes

Other Books by the Author

I. The Polifonix Poems

Chant of the Year’s Cycle

When the snow,

Melting, sets the streams aflow,

Mother ewes give forth a cream

Stream.

As our fate

Cries that living things should mate,

Leaping spirits first require

Fire.

Now the year,

Rip’ning, brings us bread and beer.

Ripeness makes this not the least

Feast.

In deeps of night,

Old and new and dark and bright

Merge and form a newly-born

Morn.

The True History of the Boy and the Mantle

One evening, to the village feast

There came a cunning boy

Who said,"I bring the sweetest thing,

To lend you grief or joy.

With that, he cracked a golden nut,

And from it drew a skein,

And fold by fold, he soon unrolled

A cloak of silver sheen.

"The woman true who wears this cloak,

She’ll wear it white and true;

On girl or wife of spotted life,

‘Twill wrinkle and change its hue.

"I’ve carried this garment through Gothaland,

And Spania from mountain to plain –

I covered much ground, but no woman I found

Could wear it without a stain.

"I’ve carried it north to the ice-bound lands,

And south to the circus of Rome;

On every good dame it did wrinkle the same,

In Olaf’s or Caesar’s home.

"Today have I come from the Britons’ isles,

Where never this mantle hung true

On timid or bold, more than thirteen years old –

So now have I brought it to you."

The Chief he rose up and he said, "Our wives

Have never mistaken their beds.

If they were untrue, then I swear it to you,

That the sky would soon fall on our heads!"

The Chief drank a toast and he said, "My own,

As faithful as she is fair,

Will prove it for all, and so now do I call

On my darling this mantle to wear!"

This lady’s repute was above reproach,

No gossip had tarnished her name.

She laughed at the joke, and she threw on the cloak –

And it curled and crimsoned like flame.

Then the Chief, how he stamped, and the Chief, how he stormed,

As the lady turned crimson and white,

And the Chief called his dear things most awful to hear,

And the cunning boy laughed with delight.

Now a bride of two days came to try on the cloak,

And as it was curling, she cried:

"All my fault lies in this: that I gave him a kiss –

Only one, before I was his bride!"

Then the garment hung true, and the Chief’s lady winked,

And she turned to her husband and said:

"We were hasty, it’s true; still, no male but you

… Yet has been into my bed!"

Rondel I Love My Love

I love my love for her golden hair

And her eyes like pearls inlaid with blue:

Those sparkling eyes (in number two) –

The airy dome is mirrored there.

The azure layers of the air

Are caught in ocean’s deeper hue;

I love my love for her golden hair

And her eyes like pearls inlaid with blue.

The ocean teems with savory fare.

My love makes excellent ragout,

Of lobsters, fish, and eels too –

Aswim in sauce beyond compare!

I love my love for her golden hair.

Ballade of Women of War

Where is Boadicea’s spear

That taught the Roman troops to dance?

Where’s Bradamanta without fear,

Armed with shield and shining lance,

Lady paladin of France?

Where’s Deborah who led in war

And quelled her foemen with a glance?

Where are the fighting dames of yore?

Where is Wanda, Poland’s Queen,

Who walloped haughty Rutiger?

Where is Maeve of Erin green?

Not even Erin’s King could tame her!

And Bess, who watched for Spain in armor,

And Aquitania’s Eleanor,

Who rode as chivalrous crusader?

Where are the fighting dames of yore?

Where’s the sword of La Pucelle,

Uplifted for her native land?

Where’s Eowyn, who, legends tell,

Slew a daemon out of hand?

Hippolyta, who took her stand

With Amazons to guard her shore?

Where’s all Epona’s valorous band?

Where are the fighting dames of yore?

Envoy

May not their daughters rise some day?

And may we not see several score?

Beware, all those who bid them nay!

Where are the fighting dames of yore?

Rondel for Kings and Queens of the Middle Kingdon

We’ll sing of brave kings and their consorts so bright:

These lords won their lands through the strength of their arms;

Their queens captured hearts with their womanly charms –

Grace governs nobly when married with might!

They sit on their dais – inspiring sight –

Governing baronies, shires, and farms.

We’ll sing of brave kings and their consorts so bright:

These lords won their lands through the strength of their arms.

They hewed down their foes in the heat of the fight,

Then flew for their rest to their ladies’ soft arms.

They shunned politicking for wars’ clean alarms;

(Rejoice when the might coincides with the right)

We’ll sing of brave kings and their consorts so bright!

Odelet for Society Warriors

The Britons have a King who is not dead,

But sleeping in some cave or secret isle

Until the day he comes again to head

His people who have waited all this while:

But Arthur in these fights of ours would see

More practised men to come to life than he.

The Phoenix lives a century, and then

Leaps fearlessly into her blazing bier,

Aware that from the flames she’ll rise again,

And so renew herself each hundredth year:

That process would be far too slow for us;

Our fighters come to life with little fuss.

Valhalla is where valorous Vikings go

After their hard-won battle deaths, to fight

With many a grim and bloody blow by day,

And live again for Odin’s feast of night:

Our warriors do not need to seek Valhall

For fights and feasting – here they have it all!

The Domain of the Gods?

Or, Triads for a Chestnut Tree Murdered in the Name of Laying a Square Sidewalk

My leaves bedecked the autumn sky,

Birds in my branches used to fly,

And you decreed that I must die.

I spread black lace in winter air,

My pledge of resurrection bare.

Is nothingness to you more fair?

In spring I rose from winter’s womb,

I