Northshield Bardic College Charter

tinyurl.com/nbccharter

The Northshield Bardic College was originally chartered in 1994 by the Middle Kingdom, to which Northshield then belonged. Once Northshield became a separate kingdom in 2004, for it to reissue the charter would be fitting; but this meant rewriting the verses with the date and place and issuing monarchs' names. Cerian Cantwr, the Chief Bard (Speaker) for that year, kindly invited me to revise my original:

In this the birth year of Our Realm
Of Northshield, which We proudly helm,
We King Siegfried, and Bridei Our Queen,
Greet all by whom these words are seen.

Witting full well the worth of arts
That move and mellow all mortal hearts,
And holding among these in high regard
The ancient and honored craft of the Bard,

We confirm the words set down afar
By the Midrealm’s Catherine and Jafar,
That chartered the Northshield Bardic College
To take and teach this worthy knowledge.

Not only Bards but all deserve
To practice arts, and thus preserve
And pass them to posterity.
For this We grant authority

To foster Bardic Arts events
And bear its badge without hindrance
Its own officials to select
And all its members to protect.

Thus no other may demand
Punishment for verse ill-scanned
For meter mangled, rhymes mislaid
Or satires at the mighty made.

Members shall be answerable,
For such actions liable,
To the College of Bards alone;
The College answers to the Throne.

That skill in crafting all may seek,
Without ambition for a clique,
Be students ’rolled, and teachers named,
But let no other rank be claimed.

Though “Master” and “Prentice” some may use,
Only between a pair who choose
In apprenticeship to teach and learn,
No rank’s conveyed by either term.

We charge the members let no fools
Administer the College rules,
But name a Council made of four
Whose terms shall last two years, no more.

Let them in turn appoint a Chief
Whose vote in ties provides relief;
Who shall for one year be their voice
In public, at the Council’s choice.

Let all who seek to be a Bard
Beware, the duty can be hard —
To sing the praiseworthy to fame
And give the blameworthy their blame.

A poet’s justice must you give,
And by the ancient creed must live:
“Y Gwir yn erbyn y Byd”, which says:
“The Truth Against the World” — always.

Let all give heed, and hence remember!
Done this fourth day of December
In the thirty-eighth year of the Society
At Our Court in Caer Anterth Barony.

[The Suno AI has composed and performed a tune for the original 1994 charter.]

[The Suno AI has also composed and performed a new tune for this 2004 charter.]

Courtesy at the Feast

tinyurl.com/courtesyfeast

The harper’s lovely, that I’ll say;
I wish I could have heard her play.

Good gentles, nobles, worthies all,
We've gathered here within this hall
To feast, and talk, and — one more thing:
To hear the entertainers sing,
The harpers harp, the bards recite,
The minstrels play into the night.
But there are those who talk and chatter
As if performers didn’t matter.

Think how it feels to pour your heart
Into your craft, rehearse your art,
Perform at feast before the crowd,
Then find the talking was so loud
That no-one heard; and those who would
Enjoy the music if they could
Were cheated too, denied the chance
To hear the song or rhyme or dance.

A talk delayed can still go on,
But when the act is done — it’s gone.

Now, no-one asks (not I, at least)
That silence reign throughout the feast;
And no-one orders or implores you
To listen to an act that bores you.
We’ll bear no grudges, shed no tears,
If you put hands upon your ears
’Til act is done – and then resume
Your talk, ’til talking fills the room.

But while the act is not yet done,
I beg you, silence, every one.
This kindness show, and you will be
Renowned for knightly courtesy —
Which, after all, is why we’re here,
Reclaiming gracious yesteryear.

I’ll make my toast with one more word:
To entertainers that we heard.

— C. M. Joserlin (“Raven”), April 30, 1994
[placed into the public domain, for the sake of such events]

[The Suno AI has composed and performed a tune for this song.]

Short Verses

tinyurl.com/shortverses

Song at Parting

Why does sorrow burrow at the hollow of our heart
When we know each “Merry Meet“ is followed by a “Merry Part“?
Should not joy as deeply dwell when we think ahead to when
Every “Merry Part“ is followed by a “Merry Meet Again“?

[composed upon leaving the Boar's Head Feast of Caer Anterth, December 4, 2004.
intended for singing at that night's Bardic Post-Revel, which, alas, I could not attend.]

© 2004 C. M. Joserlin, “Raven“

---

Faith

Bend with life, don’t fossilize;
rigid vision blinds the eyes;
faith — unchanging — petrifies;
frozen truths turn into lies;
even God, imprisoned, dies.

© 1984 C. M. Joserlin, “Raven”

---

Why do hopes to help mankind
                                       end as guns at human heads?

                                 Iron Maiden

See the trap, before it shuts,
                                       of seeming starry-eyed ideals;
This coldly abstract caring cuts
                                   the flesh its kindly case conceals.
Philosophy’s a hurtful suit,
                             too hard and sharp for human needs;
Beneath the blade of Absolute,
                                 the mortal body breaks and bleeds.

                   — C. M. Joserlin, “Raven”.

---

From Crooked Timber: “Faking da funk and faking the physics”

Raven 10.15.06 at 9:00 pm                                                                             115

“... you seem to be getting dangerously close here to an argument which would imply that non-physicists don’t really understand what an apple is....”
— Daniel in #62.

The apple falls; but particle or wave?
To grasp and taste might seem the way to tell,
Yet Heisenberg gives us a warning grave:
We’d just obscure where or how fast it fell;
And, harder news, to watch also does that.
We who can’t touch, nor see, must speculate.
Thus it partakes, with Ernst’s endangered cat,
Of plural, mixed, or undetermined state.
In many worlds, perhaps all needs are met,
One apple falls to all our waiting hands;
But in this world, the much more likely bet
Is falling once. We wait for where it lands.
At last it hits upon diffraction’s cause —
But what comes through the grate is merely sauce.

(C.M. Joserlin, 10/15/2006. Thanks, Daniel!)

---

The Tower

tinyurl.com/the0tower

Upon the hill a tower stands, the stars shine bright about;
From windows, see the golden glow of friendship gleaming out.

Toward the North, into the heights this sentinel was reared:
A lonely task its folk have asked, to shield ’gainst what they feared.

For ages long this tower strong kept back invading foes;
Yet outer guard must find it hard to lighten inner woes.

If war and pain and fear come not into this blessèd land,
’Tis but because its people’s laws have hate and anger bann’d.

As hate and anger, pain and fear may bring the deepest gloom,
So only love can rise above and vanquish that old doom.

Now, in that fight some reach the light, and some to darkness fall;
Perhaps at last, when Time has pass’d, the light will shine on all.

And still the tower on the hill withstands the darkest night;
The stars about help conquer doubt that love and hope are right.

Though high the hill, and cold the wind, and dark the night may seem,
Yet Welcome All, within this hall and friendship’s golden gleam.

September, 1979

(Dedicated to the folk of Caer Anterth, “Castle of the Zenith” or “Stronghold of the Heights” in the Northshield Region, upon their attaining Baronial status. This can be sung to the tune of “Greensleeves” or “Trelawney”.)

C. M. Joserlin, “Raven”

[The Suno AI has also composed and performed a tune for this song.]

Bright-Eyed Bortai

tinyurl.com/bright-bortai

The histories say
what he saw on the day
young Temujin came to the place
he would first meet the bride
who would be by his side
when he rose to the rule of his race.
Although the scribes fail
to give any detail
of her hair or her form or her grace,
word for word they retell
what he said he beheld:
“Bright eyes, and a shining face.”

Bortai was her name,
and her new husband’s fame
would be warrior and leader and lord,
remembered since then
as the master of men –
Chinggis-Khan of the great Mongol Horde;
it’s never forgot
that the sons he begot
would rule kingdoms he conquered by sword;
but the tale isn’t whole
if you leave out his rôle
as the husband of one he adored.

This woman so dear,
early in his career,
was seized by an enemy sly;
and the rescue was wild,
but she came back with child,
and in Temujin’s arms she did cry.
But the baby he bless’t
with a name that means “guest” –
this boy, of dark hair and dark eye,
he raised as his son,
because Jöchi was one
of the children of bright-eyed Bortai.

The strength of his bands
swept across all the lands
with a force like the wind and the tide.
After decades of strife,
at the end of his life
he called all his sons to his side.
On the order he spoke,
one arrow each broke;
then a bundle of arrows they tried
to break, all for naught.
This last lesson he taught:
“Stay together!” ... Then Temujin died.

The strong sons Bortai bore
him, through history roar
like the thundering storms none can flee;
yet they kept and obeyed
all the laws that he made,
as the duty they owed, loyally.
Möngke Tengri * rewarded
the virtues they guarded
with steady and swift victory,
and crownèd the good
of their firm brotherhood
with an empire that stretched sea to sea.

But the greatest of trees
must succumb to disease
or the ages, and wither and die:
the empire once won
has been many years gone,
and the centuries slowly roll by;
while those that had lost
it are tumbled and toss’d
Into ev’ry land under the sky;
they’ve been scattered and hurled
all throughout the known world –
the children of bright-eyed Bortai.

In the place that he’s in
now, does old Temujin
scowl down and then sternly ask why
his descendants have lost
what he won at such cost?
Does he mutter and grumble and sigh?
Does he sneer with harsh scorn?
Does he bitterly mourn?
He might feel some such way... yet I
think he’s glad, there above –
they still live, strive, and love –
the children of bright-eyed Bortai.

                                        (* Möngke Tengri : Mighty Heaven)

_________________________
 © 1993 C. M. Joserlin, “Raven”

Civilisation and Its Discontents

tinyurl.com/civil-disc

“An empire can be conquered from the saddle,
 but it cannot be ruled from the saddle.”
          — Yeliu Chutsai.

“Others may live between stone walls,
 but not I.”
          — Temujin the Chinggis-Khan.

                                        (tune: Ghost Riders in the Sky)

A wise man, Yeliu Chutsai, the advisor to our Khan,
Has told us that an empire can’t be ruled the way it’s won:
“You conquer it on horseback, swift and ruthless as the sword;
But rule it from the cities.” This he tells the Mongol Horde!

          Do-ora Tengri-de, anda-nar, chilugetai unu!

You cannot tame a Mongol who was raised with sky for roof,
Was cradled in a saddlebag to beat of horse’s hoof,
And all his life has ridden free and fast and far and wide,
His sword and bow and kinfolk as companions at his side!

          Do-ora Tengri-de, anda-nar, chilugetai unu!

To see my sons go walking down paved streets between stone walls,
Go meekly, slowly, quietly, to live in crowded stalls;
To put a yoke around their necks and those of all their young,
And let them all be “civilised” — I’d rather drown in dung!

          Do-ora Tengri-de, anda-nar, chilugetai unu!

But loyalty is paramount: a Mongol must obey
The Khan in every order — who would dare to tell him nay?
Though victory turns bitter for a free man who’s penned in,
I go to live in cities (pfah!)... together with my kin!

          Do-ora Tengri-de, anda-nar, chilugetai unu!
  ( Ride freely, my brothers, under the clear blue sky! )

                   _________________________
                   © 1979 C. M. Joserlin, “Raven”

this is not a poem

tinyurl.com/not-a-poem

this is not a poem
dropping all the capitals
in imitation of e e cummings
who maybe had a reason for it
or of archy
who couldnt push the shift key down

this is not a poem
scattered print upon a page
with pretty tYpO
                         gRaPhIc tricks
to make you think theres meaning to it

this aint nary poem
chok full with four letr cuss word talk
and asortd mispelings and grammer mistaks
that r suposed to shok **** the readr
but look like the writer just never went to school

this cannot be a poem
it isnt even words
just a fossil a trace a record a dead memory
marks on a page
meaning nothing
                                     a poem does not exist on paper
until someone comes along and speaks hears or reads
decodes the marks into language the tool of speech and thought
and then the word the sentence the poem or whatever
runs wild inside a living mind
which is the only time it ever exists

so all the fancy printing games
the type the spelling the placement
dont make a text into a poem
because where do they go
when you read it aloud

this is not a poem
even if its artful and moving
filled with feelings and images and ideas
even if the words make music in the mind
because thats not what makes a poem

a poem is structured
it may be tightly metred to a steady beat
or it may sound with rhymes around the ending feet
perhaps the words are pitched so high and low will alternate
or rather than rhythm the rule is letting lines alliterate

it may be an ancient structure
or one that had never been heard
one you impose or one that just grows
out of each forming word
but a poem is structured

believe it or not
words can be good and true and beautiful
and still not be poetry
if unstructured no matter how well organized
the term is prose

prose is not a bad thing for words to be
prose can be lovely or hideous or strong or weak
just as poems can be
and while we loosely speak of poetic imagery or poetry in motion
swell tones do not a poem make

even four score and seven years ago
even when age fell upon the world and wonder went out of the minds of men
even go placidly amid the noise and haste
are not poems
though we call them poetic

to say that good prose is a poem
is like telling a good woman shes a man
or a good man hes a woman
the sentiment may be appreciated
but the facts are wrong

a poem is like a spoken song
the writer has something to say
but has to cooperate even compromise with the music
something besides the writer is sharing the writing
in a sense the poem is writing itself

this is like the arts of bonsai and love
two different entities producing together what neither could alone
if one party had all the power it would not be art
manipulating a lifeless unresisting unparticipating object
the terms are lumberwork and necrophilia

so i found it utterly incredible
that socalled poetry journals specifically exclude
forbid prohibit banish deny absolutely will not consider
structured rhymed or metred poetry
for inclusion among the stuff coating their squeezably soft pages

one could perhaps argue a place for unstructured poetry
as having a form organic to the content
but to say that this is the only kind acceptable
is going too far
way too far

it is like saying pictures must must must be abstract
are not allowed to resemble the subject
or that not merely does a minority have rights but the majority does not
and do you know
ive heard both these claims made too

i smell a worm in this confirmed conformist anticonformity
but i am cured of being lured to bite a juicy dangled bait
with wary look i leave the hook to any who will swallow it
as of today i swim away to find a less polluted strait
and flip a fin at suckers in the fishy school of modern lit

       _________________________
       © 1984 C. M. Joserlin, “Raven”