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
#DramaticPoetry #earlyModernEurope #HistoricalFiction #Horatio #Imagery #literary #literature #Poetry #SerialPoetry #SpokenWord #travel #writing

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

#DramaticPoetry #EarlyModernMarket #HistoricalFiction #Horatio #Imagery #literary #literature #marketDay #Poetry #SerialPoetry #SpokenWord #WittenbergTownSquare #writing

there came a messenger once

there came a messenger once

in august it was
early september late in the afternoon

his horse
sweat lathered and panting he rode
through the archway to the front
doors the heavy oak doors to our priviledge

he brought instruction for besserer

charles’ armies had occupied
stuttgart it was pillaged and burned

ulm was taxed into destitution and submission

when others of his classmates
here had returned to their families while most
had left the university had left wittenberg to find
ripe crops in the fields to hire themselves out

besserer was instructed to remain
he was instructed to eat

idled into reading
he read himself into boredom

he was bored into a search
a finding of things to clean
things to repair things to paint

all through that season he laboured at
waiting for instruction to arrive
that he should return home to bernstadt
#DramaticPoetry #earlyModernEurope #HistoricalFiction #HolyRomanEmpire #Horatio #Imagery #literary #literature #Poetry #SerialPoetry #SpokenWord #UniversityOfWittenberg #writing