Jake's Flea Market

when the elector’s left dresden

left his mother sophie to answer
the lords of saxony and the emperor’s men

ridden one may morning out on a palfrey
accompanied by his huntsman his falconer
a guest or two with an escort
of squires apprenticed   to the knights who’ll ride
coursers and great horses

when he arrives   stays
at his hunting palace at rochlitz   goes out   
churns with hooves
the freshly seeded plots of the local tenants
in pursuit of the hare and of the fox   and returns   

friedrich it won’t be you 

not by foot with a walking stick
nor by ass nor by plodding pony
nor by one horse chariot 
nor by four horse carriage it won’t be   you dispatched 
to sit one evening with christian in his drawing room

to give him a reminder that purgatory now
becomes a town where the ghosts have pressed
the shutters out of the window frames   have pulled
the doors off of their hinges

becomes a village abandoned   even
by the grasshoppers   the cockroaches   the termites

becomes a ruin that gives
no excuse to go there   as it’s swallowed
gradually   into the dirt of the human memory

i’ve appointed   myself to go to rochlitz