“The Blood of a King” by Barbara Goldberg

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kingdom-of-speculation-thumbOnce 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. But over time a particular flower
thrived, which the Princess, a botanist, named
amaranthus caudatus, love-lies-bleeding.

-Barbara Goldberg,
Kingdom of Speculation
(Accents Publishing)

Barbara Headshot 2Barbara Goldberg is the author of four prize-winning books of poetry, including The Royal Baker’s Daughter, winner of the Felix Pollak Poetry Award. She is the translator of Scorched by the Sun, poems by the Israeli poet Moshe Dor. The two selected and translated four anthologies of contemporary Israeli poetry. Goldberg received two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as awards in translation, fiction and speechwriting. Her poems appear in Best American Poetry, Paris Review, Poetry and elsewhere, Goldberg is the series editor of the Word Works’ International Imprint.

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