~a day in Henry's court

Your Majesty, you tossed a portrait away

scaled to a locket’s size you kept in your pocket

gazing in trance at her now dead to you through the oil paint, her eyes still afire

She was looking at you as the artist rendered her countenance but your dark overpowered her luminescence

Quickly, as her head was separated from her body

you had already picked the next wife

She became a shade

as you moved on, never stopping to look back

Another annulment, another death

a new body to be invaded with your Kell gene tainted blood

only daughters lived to rule and draw breath

but you longed for a son to replace you

to rule upon the throne, once you faded into death

Always the woman’s fault you had no son

today your own genes betray the battle they lost,

the one you never won,

succeeded by queens,

one who bled a nation, one whose rule was golden

Women loved you, even the daughters you disdained

it was women who your legacy sustained

She fades to light you diminish into a royal name, known for the “sad six”

remembered for your many wives as you faded a shadow

Henry, Your Grace, you were always trying to balance

the light and the darkness

the stench of the smoke of those you burned alive

their blood on your hands never threatened a king who did thrive

on vengeance and reprisal, while dining on swan soup

....feathered wings for decoration

My Prince, you granted jewels for your newest conquest

quail eggs for a pregnant queen

how hard it was for you to walk with all that weight

and the lancing wound that would be your final fate

Yet while a shadow has the sun behind it you walked in nightshades a facade of a man with golden liveries and the finest linens

draped about a countenance fueled by poison blood

Now you are buried beneath the floors of Windsor

threads clinging to your bones

you swallowed life with vigor

slit the Catholic throat, yet wanted for its blessings

you stood between modalities

I could have loved you

I could have hated you

immaculately human for a sovereign lord

How many children died as a result of your poisoned blood

their mothers losing not only their offspring but their lives

as they could not produce the heir you wanted

yet you fell so madly in love,

...serial monogamy

a treacherous love you were

wrapped in magnanimous charm

Victory became everything as you took back Boulogne

your lancing a wound filled with wicked blood

you limped into Protestantism, clinging onto papal ideals

named the new laws; perhaps Thomas More was right

you wanted no one to have more power than you

not even God…

Always curious, musical, and playful

my Sovereign lord

to whom all your subjects

are most humbly grateful for the kindness you extended them

such graciousness, unparalleled loyalty to your allies,

Most sovereign prince

you shall ever remain an enigma

The sound of distant thunder is now in my reveries your Majesty

as bones come on horseback to take you

to another realm, you have become my beloved hero

my anti-hero my sovereign Prince…

leaving Rome to fester in its gold and sexual misconduct

my King, my mystery

Henry, how I would have longed to meet you

To spend just a day in your Court

‘

~alas and hope to keep my head…

© Katherine Wyatt All Rights Reserved 2017

Author's Note

~spacing is odd because of several venues so I just had to work with it