THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING
Nuremberg, October 15, 1946
King Hermann looks at his past
from the window of the cell
lit by an imaginary crystal chandelier,
the transparent constellation
of his new home chock-full
of ticks that suck only white blood,
the thoughts of the prisoners
rotate in their heads
like submarine propellers
swirling the water of the main lake:
the cerebral fluid.
King Hermann sees out there
his enchanted garden,
surrounded by barbed wire,
and the shadow of his favorite tiger
with blue and gold stripes,
which jumps between iron flowers,
catching a wingless bird
with human head;
—Hey! You’re wrong!—
shouts the little man
miniaturized into a Eurasian collared dove
covered with red feathers,
and a Star of David tied around his neck.
Above an altar, between two ash trees
that sweat black manna, like sun-baked rubber,
King Hermann admires his shiny crown,
and, beside it, his Renaissance dagger,
encrusted with diamonds, emeralds
and eyes of slaves, of Jewish pigs,
who are still staring at their young death:
a twenty year old girl approaching them
indefinitely, with her scent of mango and instinct,
an armed virgin dressed like Wagner’s Brunhilde,
with wings on the helmet and a long spear
able to pierce and plague, every time,
the livers of inferior races.
In that sky so yellow,
yellow as the illusions hard to break,
King Hermann can see in the distance
his old World War I biplane flying,
and singing with its machine guns
while the fat Mercedes engine
tunes the sounds of arrogance, and immortality.
—Here it is, coming back to me—
A lion cub bites his boots,
and a golden cigarette case falls on the floor
sounding like the last round bell.
Past can’t swallow other days,
the enchanted garden disappears, out there,
and now King Hermann sees himself
reflected on the window glass
wearing too wide white funeral gloves,
a noose around his flushed neck
and a black medal pinned on the chest.
—It’s not me—
He crunches a cyanide candy between his teeth,
the medicine of the Kings;
Wagner’s music resumes playing
leading him towards the Great Pit
where the choir of the dead
is waiting for him.