Oy Comamos y Bebamos 
     - February 12, 2007 Is it filk? Is it transliteration? Darned if I know. I think I managed to keep to the spirit Juan del Encina's original, but my Spanish is so freakin' rusty I sort of went my own way with it, and with Estrella falling at this time of year.....


Oy comamos y bebamos        (Let us eat and let us drink
Y cantemos y holguemos         and sing and be idle
Que manana ayunaremos.      for tomorrow we fast.)

Carnival is our main reason,
Feast before the Lenten season.
Soon we'll fast in contemplation
And the hope of our salvation.
In the meantime, let us drink wine,
Dance and sing to raise the rafters
For Ash Wednesday comes soon after.

Oy comamos etc.

Life is hard and it is fleeting.
What's so wrong with merry meeting?
Sit you down among my friends here
Have a cup and be of good cheer.
Let us feast and fill our glasses.
Come make merry, lads and lasses.
All too soon Fat Tuesday passes.

Oy comamos etc.

As we gather here together
Friend and foe, we're of a feather
Birds rejoicing 'neath the starlight
With good cheer before our last night.
Let us feast and fill our glasses.
Come make merry, lads and lasses.
All too soon Estrella passes.

Oy comamos etc.


It feels like it maybe needs another verse.


A Dreamer
   
- December 28, 2004

“In Service To The Dream,” he signs his name
As though a wishful scrawl could make it so.
Imagination burnishes his fame,
A mind’s-eye hero, strong as melted snow.

If bright array and brimming cup are all
Our Dreaming Hero needs his dream to gain,
His ideal image in stagnation’s thrall
Will not live large, nor worthiness attain.

“I Dream, therefore I am,” becomes confused.
No honor is required, no knowledge earned,
No service ever due, no effort used.
“I do, therefore it is,” is never learned.

Yes, dreams can give an impetus to deeds
Of service, valor, excellence and worth.
But if no action springs from dreaming’s seeds
Pretentiousness takes root in fallow earth.


Apologia
Originally written for Cynagua Investiture, May 25, AS XXXVII (2002), this piece was revised for Mists Bardic September 6, AS XXXVIII (2003). 


Today the Mist folk witness the new choice
Of one who would succeed by arts of voice, 
A bard to serve with poem, song or tale
Our Princes and their heirs to proudly hail.

My art is beat and melody and sound
Of notes and intervals together bound. 
A mere jongleur, I come before you all
No tune to play and wondering at my gall.
To chronicle great deeds, my friends, is hard
When gifted not with talents as a bard. 
To keep alight the his’try of the land,
Spout artful poetry upon demand. 
To spur the Mistlands host upon the field 
Or praise the warrior who did not yield
To make one’s hearers laugh and weep by turns –
Earns, burns, churns, glurns - what rhymes with “turns?” 
Bard I am not, alas, how may I serve?
Pentameter iambic? What a nerve!
To cobble words together into rhyme – 
Well this one’s giving me a dreadful time.
Your Highnesses, if whom you seek is one
Whose art is weaving words, then I am done.
A bard I will not ever claim to be
For halting doggerel’s what you’ll get from me.
But if it pleases you to hear old songs,
To march to war or dance the evening long,
If psalt’ry’s charms may soothe the cares and chores 
Of royalty and populace, I’m yours.

Lines Composed On Leaving Rusted Woodlands
 
January 4, 2002

Was it really just six years ago I met a certain knight
 Who bade me come and follow him to see the Forest fight?
 At my first 100 Minutes War I learned his tales were true
 And thought Tanaka's fellowship I'd never ever rue.*

 A scant week or so later, the Forest held a ball.
 I was pulled out on the dance floor by "Little" Tom so tall.
 Deonna taught me bransling, Achilles lent an ear
 To my woes of pennywhistling that made cats flee in fear.

 The rest, they say is history, the kind we make our own
 As each new set of royals take their places on the throne.
 There was archery with Macsen, and dancing with his wife.
 I tried on names medieval as I started my new life.

Connaugh threatened me with canteloupe at Pennsic Twenty-Five.**
Four more wars of such magnitude I nonetheless survived.
With Fujimaki at my back to load my trebuchet
We sadly watched the melee as the Midrealm won that day.***

Loriwyn, Achilles, Jannequinne and Isabeau
Led me to the music I came to love and know.
Singing with the Tropes turned out to be a nifty trick
But you know, our favorite chorus is, "Guess what? Chuck's a d----!"

Now I'm leaving Rusted Woodlands with a psaltery on my knee.
I'm bound for far Cynagua, my true love for to see.
No matter where life takes me, no matter where I roam
The Foresters are family and Rusted Woodlands, home.

I will have adventures in far off Western lands
And sing around new firesides and take new comrades' hands.
And when they ask where I hail from, I'll smile and say proudly,
"Yo. I'm from Rusted Woodlands. You got a problem widdat?"

Footnotes for those readers unfamiliar with this history: *My being in the SCA and all that it entails is the doing of Master Sir Tanaka Raiko. There are times the man makes me shake my head, but I do not rue our friendship. **Lord Connaugh of Rusted Woodlands accosted me one warm Pennsic morning and demanded that I eat some canteloupe, with dire predictions of dehydration, heat prostration, not to mention his displeasure if I refused. ***Pennsic XXIX abbey battle, where our slingers were the "experimental sport" of the day.


By Love Besotted
Exact date unknown, probably some time in 1997? A copy turned up in 2002 while I was packing for a move.

My lady love is fair as spring,
A paragon of love divine.
For her I would do anything
But first, another jug of wine!

My fair one is the rarest gem.
My love for her shall never fail.
I am the luckiest of men.
Sirrah, another mug of ale!

For pulchritude unparalell'd
My sweetest friend's a lovely lass.
So fair a form I've ne'er beheld.
Good host, please bring another glass!

Her lips so sweet, her eyes so bright,
Such beauty I must needs adore.
I'd hasten there this very night
If I could just get off the floor.

Copyright 2005 Lisa A. Joseph

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