Anal Cabal

Prince Nala lie back    
on an abaca hammock    
enjoying fresh bacca    
and masala under a gossamer      
cabana aside the Ganges River—      
natural light seeping    
through its beautiful weave—      
acacia-branched shadows    
moving as smoke atop the fabric.      
     
As servants tended blains    
upon the soles of his feet,    
he supped while contemplating    
penning an alcaic verse    
for his Princess Damayanti      
( having been chosen    
as her wedded husband      
so many years ago ).      
     
He gazed intently beyond      
two binal banian trees    
withered of their figs      
for inspiration; his kingdom,      
Nishadha had been blanched      
by a cruel drought—      
its greenery clinching to root;    
canna gasping for life in cracked      
bulbs cinched by death;      
the laich-lands were becoming      
no more than sand and clachs.      
     
He thought of his family instead—    
Damayanti, how their union      
had been blessed by Gods      
under a courtyard lanai      
blanketed in liana for shade—    
her chin cupped in his hand. . .    
their two children now beacons.      
     
And the one mistake that allowed    
Kali’s malfic possession to sweep      
him away in drunken merriment      
and casting of the die—    
stripped of all he possessed      
for a season—abandoned family    
lain with shame, destitution    
was an inch from fateful destiny.      
     
The fight was righteous      
his restoration glorious!    
The land was recovering;      
fate blessed him with fruits      
of peace and happiness—      
     
O! Alas, Kali! Your anal      
cabal suffered annialism;      
the abaci calculations      
allotted you but seconds      
on the scale of infinity—    
and what was taken      
was returned tenfold.      
     
As a reminder to the perils      
of bacchanalianism and gambling    
it is recorded still in the annal      
of 12th century text, Nishadha Charita,      
in the Sanskrit literature of Mahabharata.      
     
All Praise be to Allah!    
     
Prince Nala dipped quill in ink—    
  then smiled.    
~