May 2016
Barbara Goldberg
barbaragoldberg8@gmail.com
barbaragoldberg8@gmail.com
I am the author of four prize-winning books of poetry, including The Royal Baker’s Daughter, winner of the Felix Pollak Poetry Award. My most recent book is Scorched by the Sun, translations of poems by the Israeli poet Moshe Dor. The recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts poetry fellowships as well as awards in translation, fiction and speechwriting, I am Series Editor of the Word Works’ International Editions. Please visit my website, www.barbaragoldberg.net.
The Blood of a King
Once there was a certain King who pricked
his thumb on the thorn of a white rose.
Even the blood of a King runs scarlet, and did.
It ran and ran. It ran until all the rivers
and streams in the kingdom ran red. Then
the fields turned red and everything that grew
in them, corn, barley, soon the milk from the cows
and goats. And when the princess wept for her father
her tears ran red. And then he died. He was buried
without pomp in the red earth, leaving
the kingdom in disarray—the Queen
took to muscatel and her royal bed, attended
by seven simpering knaves. The Minister of Finance
retired to the counting house to count up the money.
There was plenty. He issued an edict forthwith
forbidding the pleasures of hunting, dancing, racing
and conversing, then galloped by horseback out
of the kingdom, followed by a pack of 42 mules
hauling coffers of sovereigns. And thus
the wealth of the kingdom was carted away.
The kingdom languished under a shroud of thirst
and silence. But over time a particular flower
thrived, which the princess, a botanist, named
amaranthus caudatus, love-lies-bleeding.
-from Kingdom of Speculation (Accent Publishers, 2015)
The Blood of a King
Once there was a certain King who pricked
his thumb on the thorn of a white rose.
Even the blood of a King runs scarlet, and did.
It ran and ran. It ran until all the rivers
and streams in the kingdom ran red. Then
the fields turned red and everything that grew
in them, corn, barley, soon the milk from the cows
and goats. And when the princess wept for her father
her tears ran red. And then he died. He was buried
without pomp in the red earth, leaving
the kingdom in disarray—the Queen
took to muscatel and her royal bed, attended
by seven simpering knaves. The Minister of Finance
retired to the counting house to count up the money.
There was plenty. He issued an edict forthwith
forbidding the pleasures of hunting, dancing, racing
and conversing, then galloped by horseback out
of the kingdom, followed by a pack of 42 mules
hauling coffers of sovereigns. And thus
the wealth of the kingdom was carted away.
The kingdom languished under a shroud of thirst
and silence. But over time a particular flower
thrived, which the princess, a botanist, named
amaranthus caudatus, love-lies-bleeding.
-from Kingdom of Speculation (Accent Publishers, 2015)
amaranthus caudatus -- love-lies-bleeding.
©2016 Barbara Goldberg