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The Legend of the Jimjamboree
By Robert Drake
It is said in the dark caves of the Wintertime Woods that a celebration is about. It is a bawdy bacchanal, boisterous and daring (Not unlike a rogue.) It is a meeting of the mad and hairy and merry and others too, though they do not admit it.
And what moniker doth it claim? The Jimjamboree, of course, unless it be modest. Then you hear not but Jim. Both nicknames, so short and shallow. It has the dazzling wonder of the wild weary and windy wanton, of comfort and chaos and cacophony and chimes and cats and chats, of moonlit summers and sunlit moons, of the fiery, flashing, fizzling, flaunting miracle of Jimjamboree. T'is a very poor name when you think of it.
And what is Jimjamboree? Why there are no wrong answers unless you pick all of the above. That is just silly. Guesses are always allowed, but a point will be taken so I will tell you. Is that cheating? (Not if it’s cited.)
When Jimjamboree is about the ocelots come with their poodles and the poodles come with thunderstorms. (They are bringers for sure, but are not titans for they have no eyes. They save that for the collectors of pronouns.) Ants and Anteaters ride donkeys and doorknobs bring doors who refuse to be knocked. Windows sit in the corner and watch.
The hide eyes and the wide eyes and the Cyclopes come too. Fenrir behaves, but bites and is bitten, for Jörmungand has lost his tail to the cruel white Instant. (Should have foreseen that, but I only play red decks.) The walls build taller to see over the wells to catch a glimpse of the gory glory of the Jimjamboree.
The bells do not peel for the plantains are on stage and they will not upstaged for the tower must always be jealous. (Such an odd turn) The balls align and bounce wildly, but hit the pins and a riot breaks out. Such is how Jimjamboree always is. The pawns will come and call it a draw. What a tilt. Another life given away? Not at the Jimjamboree!
From every country come the animals. Poets and bricklayers stay at the gate, but pout and bleat and beat and kick and thump with a pocketa-pocketa-queep-pocketa-queep. (Are they Vaudeville?)
The stars, they all came. No one cares for they were rescued once before. The smithy was beaten back home. Of music there is everything. Hammered dulcimers brag wildly as demons take their home. Far in the distance a volcano is king but unnamed. (He has heartburn, but the wasp does not care.)
The small bird was eaten last. It was called the orange rambling termite of lower Angolan nationalists. France was unimpressed. The ships surfaced to hear it, but went back for the dog. He itches, but the beggars are too close.
Have I been caught rambling, rumbling, thundering, blubbering? Surely not, for here I stand plugging and playing like a good universe. I might as well get on with the tale at once. We are content here at the party of the Jimjamboree though we lost our compass to the proper prim garden. At least we were not bit by the scorpion the eagle ate. Revenge is most unpleasant and the canal is dirty as it is.
Have we forgotten the advertisers? There are not so many. Each was given such monstrous luck. (torn ACLs mostly) We have but one this year. His ladder is very tall, but he goes by Marius. (Now we only know him as a thief the third of his name.)
On and on we go, our party of three hundred. We forgot our orders, but we bomb our own camp and the cotton is rotten and the rot is strawberry ice cream. (Milo alliterates.) Then the water went down the drain, but flowed into two rivers.
We still have the feast. The pheasant and peasant and peanut and partisans (very difficult to recruit. Loyalists are easier, but they have daggers.) all bring a dish of fish usually fried but not from Calgary. The knights come in the night from Arabia and bring rats and scores of turbans. They always invite the Baba and Yaga (no relation). She lost her passport to the wizard of the egg shell.
Then the feast is celebrated. All is eaten and beaten and then they are fed and bed and wed until sand falls from the small elk like hail, but warmer (gifts are commonly bestowed). All are pleased and have riddles on the mind. The clarions call the fairies to bless the host and give them small pumps. There is a final shout and then it is done. There is no more Jimjamboree until the next season when it falls upon a new host to present the x for the seekers.
Be not sad for it always gets better. We have no practice but we surely improve. It is like a bike yet without wheels or balance. Until it returns just take a handful of the off kilter tune no one can count and whistle like a willow in the wild wishes of the weathered wisdom we will not hand out. If you find yourself weary, shame. Just sit still speaking silently, snaking your mind through the maze that is the mild, monstrous, magnificent, munificent, marvelous, morbid, sordid, corded, recorded assorted, assembled, afforded…
Jimjamboree!
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