Here's an allegorical thing.
I still have to work on the opening,
but I'd written so many notes for Dante
that I felt I had to write a footnote poem.
This is called "Exegesis of an Allegorical Text."
And the passage cited is "What Yearning Fills Me."
Sit.
Do not fail to note eleven, one.
I yearn, therefore I am.
Replies reversing phrasing in numerology to one eleven..
I am, therefore I yearn.
Meaning is what repeats itself once started.
Allegory is music, not rhetoric.
It does not speak.
It listens itself to rest.
On the narrative level of course,
brave Archibald has reason enough
for more specific yearning.
Dueling with hated Bardo at gate twelve,
he is distracted by the usual vision of Angelina
atop the battlements praying for his triumph.
His rapt soul, quote, "soars like a fountain
to her, flowing fixed," end quote.
And in that instant, hated Bardo strikes.
Now in the dust, his amputated sword arm
still gripping good blade by him, his Angelina struggling
to leap from the battlements, but held back
by dwarfish servitors.
While hated Bardo stands with Snicksnack's point
against his throat, brave Archibald
declares, what yearning fills me.
[COUGHS]
Note too that hated Bardo yearns for nothing.
He has what has fallen to him, and most has fallen.
Why else is he hated?
In no particular fashion, as he might
call for dinner it being time, he leans on Snicksnack,
cutting off further remarks, then
masters Angelina who comes surprised
to foreseeable conclusions.
From time to time, he hacks a few more heroes
as they come and takes a few more angels.
Each, in turn, learning that beastliness
is a sort of fun girls can get used to.
Later, everyone dies, know one more matter
of factly than hated Bardo who yearned for nothing
and never once complained.
As for the author, his last deception practiced,
he memorizes lines to recite at the orgy that
finds accommodation with a slave girl who suffers him
as if he had more to give, a fact he is aware of
and honors her for.
Though, he curses himself next morning
for booting the chance to recite the passage
and possibly win a patron.