The Tudor Wives: Catherine of Aragon Part I of III
The Devil slithers through these halls.
Pouring these adulterous thoughts into his brain.
It festers and decays. I know not who this man is.
He has forsaken his wife and his God.
His fire still goes unsatisfied.
Not even her blue whirlpool eyes that
he willingly drowns himself in can quench his fire.
I too am drowning, but in my own tears.
There will be no ark to save me.
The shine of hair blinds him.
Everyday he makes of his eyes a gift, only for her.
With no one to see me I am invisible.
Her smell hangs in the air like a venomous gas
leaving him defenceless like our baby, our son
whose bones now lie in the mud.
Her young skin is supple like a serpent.
Her tongue in his ear, she tempts him
with her iniquitous promises.
In the garden where I walk
the apples are rotted to the core.
The rose withers.
The Tudor Wives: Anne Boleyn Part II of III
Off with my head! One final blow.
No wound was as painful,
as seeing him with his new beau.
I was with child, when he was unfaithful.
So my womb died and withered to nothing,
like a rose, in a cold, frosty winter.
He doesn’t remember the words he once wrote that were so loving.
There was a time when he loved me, not as some splinter
in his side. “Your loyal servant” he once said.
I was everything to him, the sun, the moon, and his heart.
But then he turned me away and ordered me dead.
Now I’m facing the sword, till death did we part.
The son that he craves, I did not give. So I was a called a witch.
Off with my head! That cheating son of a bitch.
The Tudor Wives: Jane Seymour Part III of III
The witch had died. I said “I do”. I slept in your warm,
smooth arms because I am in love with you.
We loved, danced, sang and drank.
The memories came rushing like the wind in June,
as did the blood from my womb.
The ones whose names I dare not speak,
had lived and died because of the duty they did not
achieve. I wanted to give you what they could not;
an heir, a son, only for you, my love. Our prayers were answered,
our country will be safe once again.
Now go and celebrate without me, the birth of your fondest desire.
The fires are lit in his honour. Let me rest, my love.
When you return, I will tell you of how God rewarded me
for the duty I have done, an image of an angel, the first I had seen.
He came down and said with a heavenly voice “The time has come.”
The angel stroked my aching belly and smiled. He then
evaporated into the sudden cold air around me.
Come hither my love, I will be here, waiting for you to
hold me in those warm, smooth arms. The arms in which
I loved you.
