The Repeat of Fate
"The Repeat of Fate"
Deep buried in a dead forest
I hadn’t heard of before,
Wycoller lies in ruins, barren
no trees nor foliage remain,
no tenant can be found,
but here I am
like a ghost glued
fast as a succubus to its walls
rain like poetry falls hard
the wind stinging the loveless hymn’s
continuous tin-hitting torrent to breathe
and it fills its chanting monkish boned gutters
with pages of leaves, rivulets cascade
burning like copper-coloured tears
like rusty blood the signature stains
down and over and through
its windows’ broken panes
pink-eyed writing stories, still life,
falling like laced crimson snowflakes
melting to sleet the messy sludge
sliding down its unchaste whitewashed sides
to be scraped away the scarlet lye
and underneath the nails that pierce
the sharp words tightly furled
like Rochester waits
torn on his wuthering
cliffs of heath;
which one am I?
which word?
which name?
the repeat of fate?
Unsaved by the Wildfell grace,
a small but loud device
runs with its unthinking heartless mouth.
On Pendle
a daughter seals her
mother’s fate;
too soon
it is opened,
the closed Malkin gate
Candide Diderot. ‘25
“Jennet Device, Daughter of Elizabeth Device, late wife of John Device, of the Forrest of Pendle aforesaid widow, confesseth and saith, that her said mother is a witch, and that this shee knoweth to be true; for, that shee had seens her spirit sundrie times come unto her said mother in her owne house, called Malking-Tower, in the likenesse of a browne dogge, which shee called Ball; and at one time amongst others, the said Ball did aske this examinates mother what she would have him to doe; and this examinates mother answered, that she would have the said Ball to helpe her to kill John Robinson of Barley, alias Swyer: by helpe of which said Ball, the said swyer was killed by witch-craft accordingly; and that this examinates mother continued a witch for these three or foure yeares last past.”
lye/lie.
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