Clever Hans (A Sestina)

It starts with the needle.
Then there is the knife
that slits the throat of the Goat.
The pig renders bacon
and veal comes from the fatted calf.
So says sweet Gretel.

The first time I saw Gretel
she was plunging the needle
into the back of her calf.
I put away my knife.
The tenement smelt of old bacon
grease and had the rank odor of the goat.

The patriarch was an old goat
who kept making eyes at Gretel;
he provided the bacon
and would always needle
her about her fear of his knife
and her innocent eyes of the calf.

But I still worship the Golden Calf,
I still pay homage to the ancient Goat,
Father of the Knife.
I silently covet Gretel
and her magic needle.
John Bacon.

There is the story of John Bacon
who led the spotted calf
through the eye of the needle,
avoided the butting charge of the goat .
He swept up Gretel,
sliced her arm with his knife .

In my carriage I am the knife;
in my hopes I slice the bacon;
in my heart I love Gretel;
in my soul I am the calf ;
in my dreams I am the goat;
in my despair I am the needle.

I love Gretel even though she jabbed me with her knife,
even though she started me on the needle and bacon,
even though she roped me like a calf and had me rut her like a goat.

(The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (paperback ed. 1987), Vol. I, No. 32 p. 133)

A Tale About the Boy Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was

What is the worth of a second son
overshadowed by the firstborn’s birth right?
He wears the laurel blossoms while
I wear the chaffed duster.


But if I could only get the creeps.


Sitting before the cherry wood cross,
I smelt the dust from the hymnals and
the hard cloth cushions on the protestant pews.
Forms coalesced in the dust,
almost invisible against the chalk white walls.
But they were sealed off from this world
beyond an impenetrable boundary.
They were isolated, not even present,
and could give no one the creeps.
I have no fear of earth bound boogie men
lurking in belfry towers.
My fear is the spiteful scorn of a loveless father.

If I could only get the creeps.

I spent some time among the walking corpses
of weary travelers who thought
they had learned something new.
But they didn’t know what fear was,
or, at least, they couldn’t show it to me.
Swaying shoulder to shoulder,
they were trapped in a circular communion
which I could not join, nor did I wish to.

And I still could not get the creeps.

Then there was the castle.
Talismanic provisions:
fire and tools, a knife, a lathe, a chisel,
a bench upon which to work.

The first night –

Long clawed cats dark as coal dust,
red eyed dogs with slavering muzzles,
these are not objects of terror.
Ah, but an enchanted bed
is another thing entirely for
fear lurks in the creases of the coverlets.
Yet the racing fury left me unmoved.

The second night –

Casting nine pins with the cracked skulls
and yellowed bones of long dead men,
wagering death’s wages with newly dead men.
Losing, but not too much; inimitable fun without fear.

The third night –

There was a heavy lidded coffin.
Inside was my cousin.
I warmed him with a fire.
I warmed him with my embrace.
I lay with him and warmed him with my body,
And so did he revive and seek to murder me.
I returned him to his coffin and closed the lid.

Then the white bearded patriarch appeared,
menace sparked from his eyes like electric flashes.
I trapped him by his own beard in an ax cleaved anvil
to be released in exchange for treasure and a princess bride.


But I still did not have the creeps

The wisdom of a chamber maid.
The daring of a golden new wife.
Minnows in cold water
slipping and scuttling down my spine.

Now I know what the creeps are.


(The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (paperback ed. 1987), Vol. I, No. 4 p. 12)