Journey To Paradise Poem by David Lewis Paget

She was a queen of the old Levant,
Of a country, lost in shame,
Each page, blood-drenched of its history
Was burnt, to bury its name,
The King had gone on the last Crusade
With his knights to the Holy Land,
But locked her into a chastity belt
Forged by a blacksmith's hand.

But Queen Fatima, known as ‘The Bitch'
Was a testy-tempered whore,
She raged and ranted at everyone
And chafed at the chains she bore,
She sent in search of the blacksmith to
Disable the King's device,
But word came back that the man was hung
So he'd never work it twice.

The King was away for three long years,
Fatima's tongue was a lash,
The sharpest thing in her box of tricks
Was the blade of the headsman's axe,
Her courtiers' popularity rose
And fell as her moods had bled,
And all had quaked at the first mistake
When she ranted, ‘Off with his head! '

She called for a Turkic Shaman to
Divine what her life would be,
Would she ever be rid of this chastity belt?
He cautioned her, ‘Wait and see! '
It wasn't the answer she wanted, so
He was tied to a horse, and dragged,
Down to the river and weighted down
Tied up in a hessian bag!

A number of fortune tellers fell
To the rage of a Fatima fit,
Off to the gory headsman's blade
Or cooked like a pig on a spit,
But then, the little court jester said
In a voice that was more like a whine,
‘Would it please the ear for a genuine seer,
At Delphi, I learnt to divine.'

‘You learned from the famous Oracle?
Come closer, this I must hear,
If the Oracle tells my future place,
Why, you have nothing to fear! '
‘My Oracle tells the key to your belt
Has been locked in the armourer's cell,
The King had ordered its secret kept
Or he'd suffer the fiends from hell! '

They carried the armourer shackled in chain
To the queen, he knelt in shock,
‘The key, if you please, or on your knees
You will feel my steel on the block! '
He babbled and begged forgiveness, said
He was caught between King and Queen,
And gave up the key to chastity
So the queen danced free on the green.

She spent that night with the eunuch slaves,
She crawled around on her knees,
She fed an insatiable appetite
Doing whatever she pleased,
At dawn she called for the headsman
Who was given his gory task,
And watched as her night companions there
Fell one and all to the axe.

She took in the jester, asked for more,
What news of the King from home,
‘Alas, ' he said, ‘the King is dead,
The vultures pick at his bones! '
‘Then what will become of his widow queen,
Say now, or you'll feel my curse.'
‘A knight in armour will come for you,
A knight on a coal black horse! '

‘Will he be the bearer of tidings, or
Will he be the bearer of lies? '
‘This knight has only one deed to do,
He'll bear you to paradise! '
She thought of the bliss of a loving knight
Who would take the queen as his right,
While she would rule with an iron hand
And he would make love at night.

The knight came thundering through the trees
One day, on his coal black horse,
The queen stood up where the parapet eaves
Hung over the watercourse,
She ordered the drawbridge down at once
And had the portcullis raised,
Then watched him galloping into the fort
And through the walls of the maze.

His horse came clattering up the steps
That led to milady's tower,
She thought, ‘At last, we shall bed this night
In the depths of my shady bower.'
The knight, not raising his visor there
Nor even dismounted yet,
Raised his scimitar up on high
Then cleft her head from her neck!

Her body dropped like a stone, and bled,
Her head flew over the wall,
She saw his face as she stared ahead
The Jester, watching her fall,
Her head fell down through the cypress trees
And she thought that the breeze was nice!
Those final seconds would lead her mind
To the Garden of Paradise.

1 November 2012