The Death Of Guy Fawkes

Guy Fawkes, 1605, plotted to blow up
Parliament -
his reasons were religious or something -
he was Catholic – or Protestant -
malcontent – psychopath –
anti-what-we’re-trying-to-do-here
(in truth, his grievances are lost to history
or even if they’re not, they’re quite irrelevant to this case) -
and he was guilty found.

How in hell did Fawkes haul two tonnes of gunpowder
into the basement of Parliament without anyone knowing??
I suspect a conspiracy.

King James I, who gave us The Bible,
forbade torture,
but had the power to bend the rule ad hoc in extremis
and so did.
James recommended the “gentler tortours” be applied first,
and then, well, you know, after that do what you have to do.
Fawkes signed his confession dutifully
with a line like a child’s drawing of waves.

The trial dragged on for a couple days.
Fawkes’ co-conspirators – a bunch of
stupid fucks with no names -
cried out their innocence,
even up to the commencement of hanging, drawing, and quartering.

A mighty throng – throng so mighty! -
assailed Parliament to behold the swelling scene!
So many young men and women of England,
so strong in body, so wise in their simplicity,
so generous with their goods,
so fearful of god,
so devoted to their king,
grown men wept to behold the assembled
pure stock vouchsafing England’s future. Amen.

They cheered as each conspirator was hoisted,
and, kicking, opened up like a hog,
their sausages removed in bulk,
the craftsman-torturer heaving on the guts
like a man trying to pull a boy out of a well,
clipping a strip of white connective veil,
here and there, to make the whole thing
come out neat.
Sure, some stayed living for quite some minutes
and all that jazz you know.

Later they would cut the cocks off and toy
with them, stick them in each others faces
and say, “Oh, you make me so horny, give sucky sucky please?”
Obviously, they daren’t do such a thing
in front of Parliament. Or ladies.
But back at barracks, they could unwind a bit.

The arms and legs were separated publicly.
This was part of the ritual.
People expected it,
and they cheered like hell as each limb came loose.
When one executioner clowned with the right leg
of Robert Keyes conspirator,
the groundlings laughed.
But a conservative MP fumed
and said a mockery was being made of justice,
and he would make the saucy fellow pay for it
and maybe he would think twice next time.

Fawkes was left till last.
They wanted him first to watch it,
then after he watched it, he would mount
the scaffold it was going to be so great!
He ascended slowly,
like a grandmother afeared of a fall, hips
and shoulders barely holding true after weeks on the rack.

The rope -
limp, sleeping, and really thick too -
was looped over his neck,
and the crowd giggling glee,
stood tiptoe
to see it all
(Some ladies later reported to their maids
that their nipples stiffened at this particular moment:
“A queer feeling, as like I would nurse a babe or – or – ”),
and Guy Fawkes, finally at the top, was heard to say,
“Fuck this.”

And he jumped a big jump, a big jump forward, out -
the hangman slapping his ass as he went,
saying “You go, girl!!” -
a jump enough to snap Fawkes’ neck and kill him.

The crowd had been robbed of the pleasure
of seeing the live body writhe
under the torturer-craftsman’s tools.
But they cheered anyway.
And then cheered when Fawkes steaming dead man’s guts
were exhumed.
And then cheered as each limb
came clear.
And the head too,
gray-faced and gray-bearded,
looking like the face of a man in prayer or on the verge of orgasm,
they cheered at that, when the head came off.
And when it was displayed to all
like the next item up for auction,
they cheered.

Eyewitnesses wrote the crowd felt “joy”.

And we watched the whole thing on tv, didn’t we?

We were there. And there.
And there too.
And we were in there,
and in there.
Every part of that meat was ours.
And we cheered too to know it was accomplished.
We squeezed each other so tightly round the neck,
we came in our pants.

 

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My notes on a John Singer Sargent painting at the National Portrait Gallery, “General Officers Of the Great War”:

These men are sated,
satisfied, tried and true,
censured and cinched,
catalogued and decorated,
and are those spurs
on their jackboots too?

Botha proud like a superman,
Allenby an Arabian beauty, half-horse,
Smuts white as a ghost,
and Field Marshall Haig right at the front,
front and centaah, SAH!!

Sargent made them round about life size -
22 men, hard, stiff,
behind them a gloomy looming tomb vault
or some edifice of state.
Top brass done up in the colors of sand,
of peaches, and leather buffed bright –
the hues of WWI –
and cadmium red kept well out of sight.

General Officers Of The Great War by John Singer Sargent

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How lordly indeed you are, my friend,
In the new suit from La Confection des Élysées.
How you honour them
By condescending to wear it.

When I was in the jungle
With you, at your mercy,
I was afraid of you.
Now here in La Ville-Lumière,
Where no man like you has walked for 10,000 years, now you are afraid.

You showed yourself to me, naked in your jungle – the only fearless man in all the world.
And now I see you, hackles up,
Moving from stillness to stillness like an unquiet animal.
When the marquise shakes your hand and says “Honored. Honored,”
You smell the blood on his
Breath, and you chill and wonder why no one else does. Are they all in league?
When the girl in service curtsies, says “Bonjour, monsieur,”
You hear her heart breaking, and you wonder why no one else does.

Return to the jungle my friend, out of this dangerous place.

Return to the tranquil jungle, under your mother’s canopy,
Where the names of things come easily to your mouth, where things are called what they are.

Every word of French I taught you – like ashes in my mouth.
I said “God made you a gentleman at heart, my friend”!
Dieu!
I feared you so.
I hoped to make you into something more like me. How could I know that I was making you
More dangerous with every word? Injecting you slowly with urbane distemper,
Pasteurizing you with good intentions.
When tantor became l’éléphant,
Numa, le lion,
Hista, le serpent – per Académie! -
I turned the sweet opera of your world
into the jeers of packs of lunatics, the whoops and hoots of cannibals.

That you would save my life and mother me back to health and I in repayment, would set the dogs on you.

Forgive me, Tarzan.

There was a moment, mon ami, when you were almost saved.
Do you remember? Did you know?
I put on my helmet, ready to go,
Picked up my revolver from that wide table stump, the one I’d made my toilet table.
And – perhaps in fever still? – abruptly threw it into the brush.

I didn’t know why then.

But I know now. After that month with you, I felt so naked, vulnerable, like a baby cleaving to his rattle. I had to throw it away or lose all courage forever.

But you retrieved it for me.
You dived after it.
You put it back in my hand.
“Tu, tu, tu, tu, tu!” you chirped like a jungle bird, pressing the revolver on me.

And I accepted it.
I shouldn’t have accepted it, should I?
I ought to have thrown it again, farther still, and turned my back on you.
Should have run away down to the river and never seen you again,
Emerged from the jungle a better, braver man.

I waited for you to run away,
While hoping you’d stay
To lead me home.
Hoping – again, yes – that you’d do my work for me. Poor slave.

By nightfall, you had brought me to the Solomougou Post
Where the men smelled like bloody earth
And more vermin creeped than in the deepest jungle.
I held your arm.
Together we found a one who would take us down river next day.

All night you perched in a tree – do you remember? -
Watching the coolies, after hours, stagger and sing below.

On the river the pilot asked many many questions about the strange white man out of the jungle -
Not about me, one more European out of his depth – about you.
I answered them. I answered all his questions!
What a villain!
The gall I had to answer his questions about you!
Maybe I was fevered still. Not in my right mind. Not in my right mind.

Forgive me, Tarzan, my White Skin. Forgive me.

C’est une drôle d’idée – that you should be “White Skin”.

Among my shallow, colorless people, you are deep and black as your rivers, deep and black as your night,
Deep, black as the great expanse that cradled and suckled the world before the mind of Le Dieu blasted away all that was peaceful, wiped away all that made sense and was sweet and perfect.

I have a black top hat and a black coat. And in Belgium the winters are white and wide and cold.

The Africans, in those hell-squalors we saw along the river,
I swear I saw them shed tears at the sight of you.

I swear I heard them sing:

“Oh there goes an African. Africa has made that man. And only Africa made him. He was not deprived of his lordly heritage, no. No. He was rescued and exalted. Exalted by the land. Saved by Africa. Taught by Africa to be strong and wise and to hear all the knowledge pouring in like cataracts from within, from without. Oh, Africa, that unites spirit and mind. Oh, Africa, that unites heaven and hell. And, look, they are taking him away! And they are taking him away!”

Mon Dieu, my white ape.
I have returned you to the hands of your captors.
I have delivered you back into the clutches of the slavers.

Forgive me, Tarzan.
Forgive me, Tarzan.

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notes for willow poem

I walked through the willows.
I let them drape their sad arms over
me, let their man-o-war tentacles of
despair sweep me down.
I let them drag themselves across me,
I let them drag their long sad arms over me,
I walked under their limbs and they did nought to me – did not destroy me, did not take any thing from me,
They gave me nothing, they took nothing.
They were sad and beautiful,
and still they are sad and beautiful,
and I love them now as much as
before no less no more

—

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1. The Death Of Guy Fawkes

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APEX

Sauropod raking and hoovering
delectibles from the lakebed
making waves

Ceratops snipping sappy timbers
like copper cables – the sound
like a wrecked galleon’s
masts cracking, knees popping.

Flatting Ptero knee-deep
draws hissing fry up
by the shoal. Sifts ‘em dry.
Gullets ‘em.
Would preen if it could.

And downwind, rapt by design,
two tri-talon feet
march in silent place
waiting for the light to change,
waiting for the go.

For more “Paleo-Poems” go to:

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3. 12 Poems Of Joy – I

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DAEDALUS WITH ONE WING

Wise Daedalus – with only one wing done -
fled before a mob
determined to string him up
and pinata the hell out of the man.
Running for his life,
he donned the single wing and,
triple-jumping to the cliff’s edge,
launched himself,
leaving the killers marooned.

As he made into the open air,
wing outstetched on one side,
inadequate flapping hand
on the other,

he well knew that all
the weight of science and reason
would not support him.

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CSI: HELL CREEK

Cracked bones – long shanks – emerge from rust-strapped earth
like a revelation by Nemesis,
recalling hasty-covered violence.

Who witnessed the killer
slamming home through the ribcage,
shoveling the four tonne turkey
up and over
bloody tumbling
talons kicking sky
meat-cleaving jaw clashing a sirocco agony?

Who saw the killer figure eight its horns
loosening the armored neck,
for a locomotive coup de grace?

For more “Paleo-Poems” go to:

http://www.nealromanek.com/category/poetry/paleo-poems/

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XII

There is a kind and like-minded thing that lies beside you while you sleep.

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XI

How many times does a woman laugh
In a day?

The survey I read
Said twenty.

How do they know

Where one laugh ends,
The next begins?

Can the animals be taught to laugh?

Can machines be?

Or what about weeping?

To hear my mate laugh recalls
This world is in every way perfect

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