‘So Many Henries’ by Isobel Dixon
So Many Henries
Thou Upstart Crow, glove-maker’s son,
what a world is this you’ve made?
What right have you to break our hearts so,
foundering nightly on the reefs
of your tempestuous stage?
How could you know so well
our joint and secret griefs,
the schisms national, long jars
of York and Lancaster,
and of our several selves.
From the heavens to the cellarage,
blood’s old parade:
the tinchel closes on the victim,
brothers plot harm, war
issues from a mother’s rage.
Son who has killed his father,
father who has killed his son –
all Falstaff’s merriment
can’t wipe this from the page,
nor right the wrongs we’ve done
to those we love. Do we learn,
rent by these scenes,
or is it bootlessly we burn?
If this whole Globe goes up in flames,
then God have mercy on the man
who seeks to build it up again.
– Isobel Dixon
From The Tempest Prognosticator (Salt/Umuzi, 2011)
Isobel Dixon is reading with Claire Crowther, Tom Chivers, Andrew Philip and Rob A. Mackenzie on Wednesday 19 August at the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, 8-10pm. More details here.