#dramaticpoetry — Public Fediverse posts

ask if his mother lives

ask if his mother lives

story is   she died

her corpse   laid out on a bench carved
into the rock of
a grave at the foot of the mount of olives

another story is   her body was taken
from there   up

reunited with   what had fled from dying

in jerusalem   the church of the assumption
it’s said to be her tombstone

ask every man for his name

ask every man for his name

the one who proves
his age by   a historic injury
closed in the palm of his hand

or by an ancient wound   healed
through the heel of his foot

who proves his age by an old
scar speared blindly into the soft
flesh over his hip   by

longinus whose bones   long ago
became the moist dust in a fertile field

the one who proves his age   ask
if he’s come to the end of the world

the day mary

the day mary
is the mother of jesus   became the day
						mary was

	the sky must have been a nest of vipers

between the one
	snake- strike of lightning   down and the next
						there must have been thunder

a small whirlwind of dust
	on mount zion   must have coiled itself
	round and round into a funnel of cloud

that inhaled the cattle from the pasture
the fig trees from the garden

inhaled the tent mary had fled
and the body she’d left behind

after a thousand years
	and six hundred i wait for news

whether she’s returned to the dust
or whether she sits with elijah in paradise 

the long tides of our shadows have receded

the long tides of our shadows have receded

this morning   early as we walked
away from the beginning of the sunrise

these shadows washed   far they flowed deep
into collegienstrasse toward the market

they flooded   away before us
four times the length of our height   then three

darkened the cobblestones   
like wednesday’s rain did

like the shadows of water darken 
the pebbles in the flaming* stream 

flooded into the square   as we arrived there

all the sunrise long our shadows receded

now it’s midday
the stones in the street have returned to the colour of dry

all that’s left of our shadows
are the puddles in which we stand

by collegienstrasse   return
toward the sky the morning sun’s abandoned

return to my chamber   and fetch my pail for water

step out of your own shade   
into the shadow of your foot


 *Fläming Heath- The Fläming Heath[1][2] (German pronunciation: [ˈflɛːmɪŋ] ⓘ) is a region and hill chain that reaches over 100 km from the Elbe river to the Dahme River in the German states Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg.

look at the vagabond

look at the vagabond
see that his ears are cropped

ask   was it yesterday his feet
were locked in the stocks

ask   was it last week he couldn’t
pull his head nor his hands from the pillory

say   tell me stranger
was it a month ago the good people 
of wittenburg threw offal at you   

smell that he’s putrid

ask   if under the wool of his doublet
the once white linen of his smock is slashed
with dried blood   ask if he was whipped

ask   if for the hours of the night
or if for years of a long dark he was
fettered in the dungeon under job’s castle1

look that his eyes blink against daylight
or that it’s his terrors that blink his eyes   say

to the man who walks the world alone
return with me to the town
i’ll give you a company to walk with
and a regiment to walk with the company


1.	Kloden Castle, about 30 miles from Wittenberg: In the late 16th century it was owned and the home of Jobst Kanne of the noble family of Kanne.

the stroll of the gentlewoman becomes a

the stroll of the gentlewoman becomes a 
march   past the man who 
sags outside the door against the wall

he with the eyes   full of storm on the horizon 
that measure the soil on the clothes and the wear 
the number of teeth in the mouths of those who pass   
the men who enter and the men who go out   

until the sight of one as poor as he   causes
the dark clouds in his eyes to reverse themselves   

until he asks   friend   can you spare a heller   

that one   for that one also   leave 
a place in the contract for his name

for these

for these
and for all those who have
no plow
and no anvil over which to bend
a plow into being

no seed
and no burgage1 over which
to spread seed

no meadow
and no swine to shepherd
into the meadow

for all those who wait
and in their wait make
the square drunk and quarrelsome
lewd and a fright

wait for the roads to thaw
and for the thawed roads to dry

wait to watch a plow cross
a selion2 pulled by an ox

wait for the winter cloak to be hung
and for the grass to green

who wait for the bloom to blow
off the branch   and for the apricot to ripen

to see a robin   wait
for there to come an end of winter

for there to come a war to go to

for all these
under what you’ve already written
in your scroll   write
we the undersigned


1 In a medieval context, a "burgage" refers to a tenure, or holding of land, within a borough or town, typically involving a fixed rent or other services to a lord or the crown. AI


2 A "selion" is a historical term referring to a narrow strip or ridge of land used for cultivation in the open-field system of medieval Europe. It was typically one furlong long and one chain wide, making it roughly one acre in area, though exact measurements could vary.

those west faced

those west faced
walls of masonry and brickwork

that all wednesday were  
damp darkened by rain wash

through all the hours of sunrise
today   
               those housefronts and market
stalls were shadow tinted

but now that sunless hue recedes
down those walls like a tide

now those walls are sunlight shaded
like mortar   like mud at midday  

go to that dark monastery where i live
and i’ll pay for your daily bread

walk like one who knows
the time between the shades is short

my father could afford to pay the fare

my father could afford to pay the fare

the horizon ahead was a curtain closed

behind the curtain   in the next day lay
wittenberg and that winter two winters before

the carriage that brought me from 
summer and a place where 
there was nothing for me to do   there was

a draft that entered those long days
in from around the windows
in from around the doors
in from where the walls joined walls joined
the top     joined the floor that draft entered
in through the spaces between the threads of my blouse
between the threads of my trousers

that entire life through i shivered

i wanted a blanket     a hooded robe

i asked that the carriage be stopped
stopped at a roadside inn or at a tavern

that wind     that draft that entered
in   it would have diminished

i could have warmed   stepped out   eaten 


but the driver whipped
the sweat on those horses even more
and the turn of those carriage wheels never stopped
‘til the carriage skidded no     sledded into wittenberg

wittenberg grounded in snow

the clothes i wore
that i’d outgrown in the summer left behind i   i shrank

i had to employ a hand to hold
my trousers up from down in the snow around my ankles

i was so hungry

and wittenberg was just another carriage 
worse than the first

but there was philosophy to distract
from the misery and there were books to read

and my father could afford to pay the fare

in the sun brillianced square

in the sun brillianced square

my saturday shadow had shrunk
down to the small
circle in which i stood

loudly the gander flocks gaggled
and more loudly the merchant throngs
and the throngs of purchasers haggled

i received
free rumours of plagues and of wars
free news of birth and of death
 
i was offered cabbage and kale
offered turnips and carrots
garlic and leeks   beans and peas
spinach and lettuce   good king henry
pork   lamb   poultry

before i bought a loaf
of rye bread for a pfenning or
for a pfenning   a pound of cheese

a chemise for a half thaler
or for a whole thaler i was offered
a barrel of peasant wine

before my shadow lengthened
i escaped the sun blinding market
through the door into the black eagle
into the dark dimmed with torches

squinted sun peeks

squinted sun peeks
over the edge

bright eye opened 

eye from the far east
oriental

eye of one   pot stoned

eye the colour of fire

white surf stretches
from the corners of the eye

it squints at the house 

white comes out of the walls 
red comes out of the roof

squints at the barn 

red comes out of the walls 
green comes out of the roof

squints at the grass   at the trees

green comes out of the grass blades 
out of the leaves

squints at the parking lot

black comes blacker than the night 
was   out of the asphalt

the eye squints at you  

your colours come blonde 
out of your hair
caucasian out of your face
navy blue out of your jacket
denim blue out of your jeans

from the eye’s corners flames roll
like tears across the edge

this is how day wakes
how the sun begins to open 

collegienstrasse had changed

collegienstrasse had changed
rapidly   from a dusk shaded
cobblestone   garden from where 
many youthful voices had climbed like vines
and the youthful laughter of many had bloomed

rapidly changed 
to a street fallowed for the night where
the students who were 
the seeds from where all those voices
and all that laughter had sprouted

the students had gone home
and the avenue had become 
a bared road through a shadow

a shadow that 
had at first lengthened
first darkened into schlossstrasse

then lengthened and darkened out
of the beggar square that all night 
waited for bread and for brew

lengthened   darkened
past the windows of linen and parchment
oiled and dim lit   extinguished

past the shuttering of houses

past the university
and the students in the dormitories who’d 
pulled the blankets to their chins

past this old monastery
and the professors who lived here then
and then wrote midnight lectures
here by candlelight

as the shadow lengthened
darkened into nightfall at the eastern wall

the one who’d drawn
the watch that night   came
closed the eastbound road out
locked the elster gate and began
to walk his rounds

paracelsus arrived

paracelsus arrived
before the south gate
was unlocked

while he waited
to ask the watchman
if the pestilence had come
to wittenberg before he had

the east gate 
was opened like an eye

and the morning’s early sun
that had risen from where it waited

its shining entered 
the town like a tide

from denmark hamlet brought silver

from denmark   hamlet brought   silver
speciedalers and cronin

and so he paid   to wear the black robe
and the recognition from the towns’ folk
that he was a student here

so he paid for admission
into these corridors of ignorance and revelation

admission to these classrooms
where both daydreams and fascinations were
brought to the table

for me he bought
memories of how he knelt
at his waking and at his bedtime prayers

memories of his voice when he sang hymns

but now   sure as i knelt beside his dying
he’s long forgotten what he paid
for a chair

for a place among the gathered
in the assembly hall

his understandings
of german   of latin
of philosophy   of theology

his ability to speak
in all these languages   to read

all these things he bought   he left   where

like all of us   occupants   temporary
his bed in the dormitory   was rented

instructed

instructed
in my first hour
here   by the danish king

to share his chamber with me
his meals and his clothing   his books

i possessed nothing   and hamlet
he was his father’s desired son

the student favoured
by the dean of philosophy

alberti who instructed him
to show me the town
to be a host to me

tomorrow

when the shadows of short boys stretch
long on the cobble stones of collegien strasse

when they stretch toward the west
and toward town square

tomorrow early show
this erasmus the way to the market