They spin finely
Knife-light shrouded like darkness
inside a cloud. Medea in aquatinta,
more bacchant than parent. Eyeless,
benumb with ritual odium, y la trama
unwarps, hibble to hex, spins a thread
as the devil weaves, severs the heart
from its home. To every child denied
love: cut familial strings, find an exit.
Hobgoblins
Another kind of people hobgoblins
the minds of little men. No Bunyan
fiend is he who frightens a maiden
of ancient privilege. Happy as no-one
but a freak. Hand of Puck who jokes
sweetly unfree, to sweeten a Dukedom.
The wrong face in the oldest village
is another’s. A goblin is no Athenian.
Thou who canst not
As if the weight that we carried
were love, not a pocket of silver.
Bloodshadow rivers in white sand,
is whispered at the buccaneer’s ear
by King Ferdinand. Eighty Maravedis
for the price of a cavalry, a peninsula.
On their backs, the sign of the beast,
the profiteer that relies on war.
Artwork from Los Caprichos, Francisco Goya, 1799
