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
#DramaticPoetry #EarlyModernWittenberg #HistoricalFiction #HoratioDialogue #Imagery #literary #literature #Poetry #SerialPoetry #SpokenWord #Sunset #writing

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
#DramaticPoetry #EarlyMorningInAnEarlyModernTown #HistoricalFiction #Imagery #literary #literature #Paracelsus #plague #Poetry #SerialPoetry #SpokenWord #writing

paracelsus who was

paracelsus who was
physician at basel on the day
the pestilence arrived

there was no cloud
over the town that day no storm
from where a first raindrop fell
and another then a third
then a quarter of a deluge

he once said an evil helios
climbed the sky that day
and from midday shone
down on a first in the square

the first felt his warmth
then felt his warmth heat to a fever

the fever cooled froze to chills

the neck the armpits the groin swelled

the toes the fingers the nose blackened

the first weakened
weakened weakened then died
and a second then a third
then one of every four

before the hour came
in which he couldn’t
cure himself paracelsus fled
#DramaticPoetry #earlyModernEurope #healthCare #HistoricalFiction #Imagery #literary #literature #plague #Poetry #SerialPoetry #SpokenWord #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

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
#DramaticPoetry #earlyModern #Education #HamletAndHoratio #HistoricalFiction #Imagery #literary #literature #Poetry #SerialPoetry #SpokenWord #UniversityOfWittenberg #writing

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
#16thCenturyCampusLiving #DramaticPoetry #earlyModernEuropean #HamletAndHoratio #HistoricalFiction #Imagery #literary #literature #Poetry #SerialPoetry #SpokenWord #UniversityOfWittenberg #writing

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

#DramaticPoetry #earlyModernEurope #HistoricalFiction #Imagery #literary #literature #marketDay #Poetry #SerialPoetry #SpokenWord #writing