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    The Prophet Of Amanga
    The Prophet Of Amanga
    The Prophet Of Amanga
    Ebook149 pages59 minutes

    The Prophet Of Amanga

    By Tim Ellis

    ()

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    About this ebook

    "...an incredible feat of literature: a genuine page-turner..."
    "...an amazing book...the underlying narrative voice and tone is very consistent all the way through...a very good yarn."
    "...outrageous and bawdy verse novel...shocking, hilarious and sometimes unsettling..."
    "I felt the eyes of Imti Mentoo watching my every move. And you know what? I kind of liked it."
    - customer reviews of God The Banana on Amazon.

    When the bright young graduate Benjamin Bremmer arrives in the mysterious tropical island republic of Amanga, he is seeking some purpose to his life. Volunteering at an orphanage in the poverty-ridden capital city, Ben meets and falls in love with Teri, a beautiful but pious fellow worker. The couple journey bravely into the remote heart of this forbidding country, but unbeknownst to Ben the evil local deity Imti Mentoo has already decided his purpose. This is the first of the three-part satirical epic sonnet sequence, God The Banana.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTim Ellis
    Release dateOct 31, 2014
    ISBN9781311516527
    The Prophet Of Amanga
    Author

    Tim Ellis

    Tim Ellis lives in Harrogate, North Yorkshire in the UK, where he runs a small gardening business. He is fascinated by wildlife, especially birds, and with his partner the artist Robbie Burns he has travelled around much of the world seeking out the rare and the beautiful. As a poet he divides his talents equally between page and stage. His first book was a collection of 40 sonnets around a theme of birds called Birds of the World in Colour, published by Flarestack in 2004, and his second book was a poetic journey through Latin America called Gringo on the Chickenbus, published by Stairwell Books in 2011. On Smashwords he has self-published two "verse-novels", On The Verge and God The Banana, the latter in three parts called The Prophet of Amanga, The Temple of the Monkey, and The Evil of God. His poems have appeared in several magazines including The Dalesman, Orbis and the Poetry Society’s Poetry News. He has won many prizes including 1st prize in the 2011 Huddersfield Grist Poetry Competition. On the performance side, he is a well known face at slams, festivals and Open Mics throughout the North of England. He is a previous winner of the Ilkley Literature Festival Open Mic Competition and in 2011 he won the first York Poetry Slam. He can occasionally be found at poetry events in York and Leeds, but his principal haunt is Poems, Prose and Pints at the Tap & Spile pub in Harrogate.

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      Book preview

      The Prophet Of Amanga - Tim Ellis

      Part One of God The Banana

      Tim Ellis

      Published by Tim Ellis at Smashwords

      Copyright 2014 Tim Ellis

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Picture a diamond spinning against the dark,

      flinging back the brilliance of a sun.

      Move a little closer - you’ll be stunned

      how lakes and oceans flash, how ice-caps spark.

      Zoom in lower still and see the forests,

      so vibrant, so intense your eyes will ache.

      They sweep through archipelagos that arc

      across the turquoise waters of the tropics.

      Now select an island of that region.

      Focus in on green until the stark

      disfigurements become defined: the lesions

      roaded into wildscape with no pity;

      the oil palm tree plantations. Those pock-marks

      are cattle plains, those giant squid are cities.

      Then hover over one such. Be a bird

      - a scavenging kite. Greedily eye the slim

      parishioners of plastic sheeted slums

      that make the creature’s long limbed outline blurred.

      Note the ruins dotted round the place:

      churches, shocked by seismic shifts, have tired,

      have cracked and crumbed, and as they fell interred

      the notions of a colonising race.

      Swoop down on a square where scuttle squads

      of vertebrates that teem like ants when stirred.

      They mill round marble forms of many gods,

      and taking up one plaza-side’s the regal

      (though taste can vary, and some might say absurd)

      mass of an immense Baroque cathedral.

      Many thousand sticks of incense smoulder

      blueing the gloomy hall within this building:

      many thousand threads of vapour bending

      wispily into the roof vaults out of holders

      which smoke before a hundred pagan altars.

      A cankerous crust of ash and dust and mildew

      mottles myriad local gods which moulder

      upon stone plinths. Slivers of sunlight filter

      through the cerulean cloud and glint on marble

      angels and cherubs overlooking older

      divinities, from a rood screen depicting a garbled

      tableau of Paradise. A throng of worshippers share

      faith between Faiths, and bearded shamans rub shoulders

      amicably with the clergy of Moshadir.

      "As we enter look at the architrave...

      …the saints are eating bananas, the fruit of Amanga."

      The tour guide’s clients look but they don’t linger,

      just shuffle through the portal to the nave

      where pigeons coo in the rafters. They squint through dinge

      and gagging fug of incense.  Harrumphs and coughs

      are lost in the vast cathedral, dim as a cave

      after the plaza. Some pious tourists cringe,

      discerning pagan idols; they wrinkle noses,

      look down at the floor and find it paved

      with marble tombstones stained by trampled roses,

      Coca-Cola, bananas, oranges and dates:

      the names of colonial overlords engraved

      on Christian memorials blotched by the secular state.

      The tour guide waves an umbrella and starts his talk,

      enthusing that this Holy City’s lucky

      so many faiths can co-exist:  these mucky

      idols daubed with dyes and powdered chalk

      are testament to indulgent native priests.

      "This church at times is like a market hall...

      …street-traders set up pitches here and hawk

      their wares as offerings to the mythic beasts...

      …even local rum is made libation.

      Here is Graal, with head and neck of a stork,

      and this...the phallic God of Procreation:

      Imti Mentoo with his manhood…how do you say?...cocked?"

      Some younger tourists snigger, others gawk.

      The eldest and most staid seem somewhat shocked...

      ...to find such things revered inside a church.

      A grey-haired lady asks how, in this town

      where earthquake shattered monasteries abound,

      this building’s ridden each new seismic lurch.

      "Maybe it’s that Imti Mentoo god

      that props it up!" a cheeky backpacker smirks.

      The guide raps on a pillar: marble, smirched

      by greasy fingers...but no...it’s odd:

      a hollow wooden sound ascends to the rafters.

      A dollop of plop descends from a pigeon perch.

      The tour guide,  dabbing his head,  narrates above laughter

      that a 17th century governor,  Gonzalez-Bremmer,

      concluded after several years’ research

      that timber columns best absorb earth tremors.

      To someone who is quietly watching them

      this would be funny in more ways than one,

      were he inclined to bear a sense of fun

      beside the weight that’s crushing him, but then

      there is no person in the world who’s stronger.

      He’s checked this group already for the man

      he’s looking for, inspecting all the men

      who come in here, prepared to wait much longer.

      The one he seeks has family history

      carved in the floor - those names would see a "den

      of thieves" in this church - they’d founded it to be

      their symbol of power; a holy imperial

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