they had to exorcise it--that thing in the air, that thing in the water.
earth, then something other--that's how
it happened.
not the dance instruction of a tarantula to sweat out venom, but by the lived
eschatology of medievals.
worked off in mass dances (tarantism)--
till exhaustion/death.
as if they were the herd of swine that
evil spirits were cast into.
the Gadarene demoniac which Jesus
eighty sixed, caught sniffing around tombs, en route the left-hand path.
bells rung by flies, leeches bled out the: I, flames ran up the: I--heresy!
blood/yellow bile/black bile/phlegm--
the slop bucket fluids of: The Four Humours.
corresponding to the four dispositions, the four ages, the four elements--a feast
of fools attempting to psych-out wodnesse.
as medievals finger-pointed in their sleep, exacerbating toothless drool while
giving over a name.
smoky villages trampled with commotion, then nothing--closed doors taking on a
life of their own.
peace like a frozen juggler, beside a breathless flutist, you could trip over prayer only to look up at an inquisitor.