Fairy Tales

Cinderella, among the ashes of the dead,

Speak to the invisibles in flame,

At the hearthstone,

And the dark god in dogskins

Looms in your eyes.

The Ugly Sisters killed your mother

And ate her,

But you collected the bones

And planted them

Under the yew tree.

It sprang up from just three drops of blood,

Branches full of fruit, clothes and treasure.

From one grain of corn you make bread for the world,

From one thread you spin endless cloth.

Legions of ants march through your head.

Pumpkin moon races across the sky,

A mouse-drawn carriage,

Wherein you sit, black-veiled.

Your three bright robes dance,empty,in the air,

And a swooping blackbird catches the falling glass slipper,

Carries it away over the sea.


With a talking stick and a ball of mist,

Cinderella steps from her dead mother’s tomb,

Her laughter falls from the ramparts

Of a castle in the forest’s heart.


A hawthorn branch guards the night.

The changeling’s eyes open. A weird blue stare.

Footsteps and shadows play chess with the mind.

The sun goes down behind Bluebeard’s castle.

The same riddle is put

To the True Bride and the False.


The king’s third and youngest son,the despised simpleton,

Comes to rescue the realm,where his brothers have all failed,

Mounted on a scraggy nag,dressed as a fool

In hempen coat and dunce’s cap,

Wand in hand and a child’s smile on his face.


Pricked by a spindle, you sleep

In the highest chamber of the castle,

While a spinning wheel whirrs the world awake.