SATURNALIA AT THE BASILICA
SATURNALIA AT THE BASILICA
By: Randall Nicholas
While it may be freezing cold,
farmers come skipping from their fields
in the pillowy white dawn thick as snowflakes
in the headlights or as monks
tumbling from their cots for morning mass
laden with produce and prayer,
singing, chanting their hearts out
in a flurry of ducklings and goslings,
droves of still-to-be-milked moocows,
and clutches of rosaries, gorging
the streets pouring with royalty
through the portico into the nave
out to the aisles setting up tables,
chopping blocks, and pails, relics
displays and confessionals,
all the time texting each other
to find out who’s arrived or on their way,
the hearth-stoking, back-scratching,
urinating, baby-nursing, genuflecting,
wine-uncorking crowd,
if they haven’t already,
getting out guitars and plugging them into amplifiers,
picking and resonating a reverberating jam
of foot-stomping, hip-swinging, dug-pulling relief,
slaughter, and carousing,
while cloud-teetering God and his angels look down
and keep whacking off.
Found this on Saturnalia:
1: the festival of Saturn in ancient Rome beginning on December 17.
2:
a : an unrestrained often licentious celebration : orgy
b : excess, extravagance
and Basilica:
: a large church that has a long central part that ends in a curved wall.
1
: an oblong building ending in a semicircular apse used in ancient Rome especially for a court of justice and place of public assembly.
I was drawn in with this piece’s attention to detail with setting and festival participants–i feel like i’m there and even want to be a part of it! The first part of the poem describing the idyllic monks really contrasts with the 2nd half which tells about the modern techie crowd attendies–yet both are revelers in their own way. Compelling flow too that seems to come off the tongue like sweet honey mead. Enjoyed the form and the craftiness as well; lines constructed just right for me. I was shocked by the ending and at the same time laughed like hell (no pun intended). Great read!