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Sancho Panza’s Choice
Well-met, Señor. And blessings on your inn.
You are the landlord here, is that not true?
Please sit with me and drink. I’ll pay for two.
Your least expensive, though. My purse is thin.
I serve my master gratis. Yes, that’s right—
The white-haired viejo now in sleep’s embrace.
Don’t say “Señor Quijano” to his face!
Please call him “Don Quixote” or “Sir Knight”!
I know men mock him, those rude muleteers
Who point and say, “That old man’s lost his mind!
Unhinged! Un poco loco. Over-wined!”
I know they mock me too—yes, I have ears:
“You see that foolish, paunchy man attend
The old one? Surely, he is crazy too!”
Don’t listen, sir! My sanity is true!
I work for him because he is my friend.
I beg you to consider what I say.
The role I’ve chosen gives me much delight:
An unskilled squire who serves a moonstruck knight
At rest now from the battles of the day.
We ride from place to place where fortune leads.
He speaks of chivalry, of what faith brings.
And simple me, I help him with small things
And thereby help him further great good deeds.
You saw his bruises? Here is how he fell:
He spied a windmill which he deemed defiant—
Which inner sight revealed to be a giant
Disguised by a dark wizard’s demon spell.
That giant was a villain to be humbled!
My master spurred his horse to a fast prance
And tilted at that windmill with his lance,
Attacked a sail, got lifted and then tumbled.
Reality thus knocked him to the ground!
Well, I have heard it said for safety’s sake
To never rouse a sleepwalker to wake.
But in my master’s dreams blessings abound
Such that a man like you who keeps an inn
May seem a lord with majesty infused;
A strumpet may be readily confused
For some young princess, chaste and free of sin.
Our mundane world, or his imagination?
Which one is more ennobling would you say?
I think of all the good he does each day
And this confirms my choice and avocation:
Commitment to a cause which serves the Rood
And leaves the world a cleaner, better place!
Though windmill-tilting seems a foolish chase,
Some hopeless causes ought to be pursued!
Does madness govern Don Quixote’s brain?
It’s true, he can’t withstand an Inquisition.
But who can match the glory of his mission?
Not we who are the melancholy sane!
He knows he cannot win yet still he’ll fight!
I tell you, Sir, the virtue that is his
Recasts the world as better than it is!
I serve my friend because I know he’s right.
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The Windmill Turned
—a rondeau
The windmill turned and ground its weight
In grain—a greatly needed freight
Since all men hunger and need bread.
And yet the old knight wished it dead!
Though dusk approached and it was late
He still had time to perforate
This giant who provoked his hate.
And while the old knight’s reason fled,
__The windmill turned.
The old knight did not hesitate:
He spurred his horse to reckless gait
And grabbed his lance—full speed ahead!
He tilted, fell and cracked his head.
Indifferent to the old knight’s fate
__The windmill turned.
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Brian Yapko is a retired lawyer whose poetry has appeared in over fifty journals. He is the winner of the 2023 SCP International Poetry Competition. Brian is also the author of several short stories, the science fiction novel El Nuevo Mundo and the gothic archaeological novel Bleeding Stone. He lives in Wimauma, Florida.
Lovely, Brian. A tribute to the chivalric and imaginative service of good. Sancho Panza’s choice of friendship for an idealistic master (befuddled in some things) does indeed recast the world as better than it is. Don Quixote may have temporarily stopped an unthinking windmill from the necessary grinding of grain, but it probably did the old fellow more damage than he did to the local economy. A rondeau is the perfect form to characterize the windmill. You depict the perennial contrast between reason and idealism in a fallen world where many things operate, and sometimes persons think, mechanistically, but where Sancho chooses small acts of service to the important ideal of friendship.
I appreciated both poems. What will stick with me are the melancholy sane who know they are in a battle they can’t win. The windmill turns and turns, despite our best efforts to stop it, the machine is indifferent and keeps turning. Sad. Frustrating. Helpless.
The legendary Don Quixote is one I have appreciated since I was a young boy. There are mixed emotions of admiration for willingness to attack perceived threats with wonderment at his lunacy or was it poor eyesight. The tale struck me as simultaneously endearing, laughable, and sad. Margaret was right about the rondeau as the ideal poetic form for a windmill. Several years ago, I wrote a poem about Don Quixote but yours is far more detailed and prescient. Great poem as always from your gifted mind with great selection of words and phrases.
Brilliant work, Brian, especially Sancho Panza’s Choice; it is not only wonderfully Browning-esque in its monologue qualities, but also in its – almost – moral sublimity! I think of Browning’s Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came (one of my all-time favourite poems) and its epic quality, as well as Hopkin’s in Honour of St Alphonsus Rodriguez – that sublime ‘sticking at it’ quality. Well done. Great work.
While, unsurprisingly, I’m not familiar with the Don Quixote saga, Brian, the ‘concept’ in this piece seems clear: unwavering dedication to whomever or whatever cause one subscribes to is worth most any sacrifice one can make.
Brian, once again, a triumph! “Sancho Panza’s Choice” makes him stand twice the height of other non-reactive, complacent men. He righteously stands by the one he honors, and so doing, makes Don Quixote even more honorable in his quest for good deeds.
“The Windmill Turned” captures the paradox of human invention: in creating machines to serve us, we’ve also ‘given birth’ to soulless forces that remain indifferent to our struggles. Though created by necessity and ingenuity—our machines become (though this may change!), unfeeling giants, impervious to human will and impossible to conquer.”
Great work, Brian! I particularly like the abbacddc form of the stanzas in “Sancho Panza’s Choice”– it creates a real musical undertone, so pleasant to the mental ear!! You truly make Sancho Panza come to life!! Well done!
Brian, there seems to be little left for me to say after the acute analysis and massive praise that your two poems have received. But I’ll try.
“Sancho Panza’s Choice” could be used as a classic textbook example of a successful dramatic monologue and how it works. It presents a character, a situation, a silent interlocutor, an intimate revelation of personality (both Sancho’s and Don Quixote’s), and the unfolding of a powerful viewpoint and argument. Sancho tells of himself, his master, the loyalty that links them both, as well as a clear understanding of the opinions of others who do not take the pair seriously, and all of this while presenting a magnificent defense of Quixote’s knightly idealism, and Sancho’s devotion.
Composing it in eight-line stanzas of two ABBA quatrains was a shrewd move. Blank verse would not have been as effective — the perfect rhymes here suit Sancho to a T. And the sheer clarity of his arguments are a mirror of the down-to-earth common sense and peasant realism that his character represents.
“The Windmill Turned” is a totally different kind of piece. The rondeau form, by its very nature, pushes the poet in a different direction and demands a less robust style. Brevity is imposed by the form itself, and the repetends and strictly controlled possibilities for rhyme constrain composition. Here the poet is limited to a brief telling of the windmill, the old knight, and the comic encounter, and there is no room for error in meter or diction. This rondeau is as precisely cut and polished as a Roman cameo. Allow me to restate a commonplace: the small forms demand absolute perfection of detail; the longer and open-ended forms are for more expansive and less restricted expresssion.
Brian, this work is stellar. The SCP is becoming the nucleus of a poetic Renaissance, and your poetry is at the heart of it.
In my head I heard Dave Olney reading these. It is probably the gait, the rime choices, the tone of bemused irony. As always, loved both!!