To Court with Famulus and Farrago

 

A medical certificate for attitude smatterings of sickness materials of the imagination surviving remnants of astronomical meaninglessness moving backwards through a musical canon to the center of town, leaving an inscription, “Carthage must be destroyed” a book carried in one hand filled with Greek letters by a servant to a magician, then a scholar... .   Famulus remarked to Farrago, “It is the chaos of unrelated things, a disordered mixture of people retreating into the unique and strange on which individuality depends..”. The subtle connotations experienced in a single moment, sacrificed, ominous and grave, entangled with early printed books of cautionary harangues whining about the state of the world, lamenting one’s fate, seeking anonymity yet conspicuous in its own mystery and lasting late into the night... .   Famulus grabbed the grotesque door knocker that everyone has seen and used, it made a remarkable sound; a jester in masquerade appeared, the vapors emitted from rotting matter creating an unwholesome atmosphere. He had a foul-lipped name, “Liripipe”, that he pronounced with a sneer and a gaseous miasma. .   Deep within, an ignorant priest conducted a Latin Mass, saying mumpsimus for sumpsimus an surviving on bad memory and drink. The congregation was navel-gazing into commoner psychology, the rich embroidery on the clerical vestments exploding into an expanse of meanings. .   The inmates observed from across the court, their multilingual admissions of sin and guilt echoing in chants of “peccavi”, the intellectual and pompous sound finding charm among the poor wretches, their bald heads looking like peeled garlic, hoping for a renaissance from their harsh punishments which were rigorous, just, and severe, served by three judged from the underworld, sentences based on character and deeds... .   New and unusual labors, endless and futile were given to the condemned, creating architectural decorative ornaments that imitated functionality, yet hurriedly killed and stuffed, the cry of the hunter drifting away with mellifluous words and the tintinnabulations of Roman bells... .   The jester performed cunning tricks not limited to his performances, carried out beyond the spheres of the audience's knowledge, disparaging mockingly enough people that they turned him counterclockwise and made him obsolete. .   I am writing you as ambassador to Christmas, compulsory gifts as the season approaches to be made to strangers and enemies, yet I am prepared, having inquiries by ancient skeptics in bundled sets, ever at hand...