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A History of Wickedness/ In theBootmaker’s Street (a poem)

A History of Wickedness/ In theBootmaker’s Street (a poem)

Published Feb 2, 2023 Updated Apr 22, 2023 Culture
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A History of Wickedness/ In theBootmaker’s Street (a poem)

 

A History of Wickedness/ In the Bootmaker’s Street

 

The despotism of the overlord, like a double fold

of skin, closes on the liegemen.        

When no heir is apparent he pulls it back

and it’s farewell and God b’ye to them.

 

In the market town, the workaday sway of the law,

like the guilds’ signs swinging up high, is intact.

Meanwhile, on the stream-bounded lowland,

dynastic clashes drag on for thirty years.

 

But the way the fly landed on the swineherd’s cock,

and the lad quickly pulled the skin over it,

that was a metaphor for something between

master and servant, power and obedience.

 

The bootmakers’ street was loud with news of the battle,

the mob in the gutter were gossipping about revolution,

while in the blowflies’ abdomens the blood of noblemen

mingled with that of the vassals.

 

©Anna Bentley 2022 for the English translation

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