[Here is another recent poem produced while I was struggling to conclude 64, with which it shares some themes.

The Prince Henry of the title and first section refers to the historical figure of the Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator, who was one of the pioneers of the European colonial project and funded the first successful efforts to navigate the so-called Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean, although he never travelled on a voyage himself, as the Portuguese national poet Camões did. The rhythm and content of Camões’s epic are mocked here by turning them into a sort of rap.

In the second part, Henry takes on more of the character of another modern day Prince Henry, who may be familiar to some readers. The poem ends with a reference to the Portuguese/Brazilian Messianic/apocalyptic cult of Sebastianism, according to which the Portuguese King D. Sebastião, who funded Camões and disappeared during a battle with the Moors deep in the Moroccan desert in the late Middle Ages, will return one day to reclaim the kingship and redeem the world—a Portuguese King Arthur of sorts. This cult most famously inspired a conservative popular uprising deep in the semi-arid region of Brazil, in the late 19^th century, which was brutally suppressed by the recently installed Republican régime. It is recounted much more extensively and poetically than I ever could in the epic prose of the Brazilian writer, geographer and military engineer, Euclídes da Cunha, who was embedded as a journalist in the ultimately savage campaign.]

 

Prince Henry Does the Cape

In fourteen hundred and thirty-eight,

Prince Henry, hopped up on hope and hate,

set his long sights on rounding the Cape,

with sugar and slaves and all things nice

and swords and cannon balls to scythe

the fertile crescent of the nascent Islamic state.

*

The crow’s nest sways over the waves,

as the tsunami hits

and legs & bowels give way to the scurvy

and the eyes of the Virgin Mary tear up with blood,

remembering the flood,

foreshadowing the final fire.

Guns are hired, high-fives all around,

as they scupper dhows and junks.

Musket shot bows the necks of infidel punks,

cannonballs pound the cities that stink of spices and skunk.

*

& the coast of Ceuta is packed with refugees

& the streets of Kabul, Mosul, and Ferguson

are patrolled by Humvees.

Palates pleased with mangoes and curries

cry out for sweet mercies,

as the memory of the poppy sap in the brain

fades and cries out for more

& the whole wide world goes giddily down the drain.

*

Tea was a good idea, the admiral concludes,

as he gives orders to unleash

a barrage of deathly shells onto the shore,

that would make Shiva proud.

*

Prince mutters populist inanities,

as he steps dashingly from a helicopter.

Prince dons his cape,

kissing, kicking ass, saving

near-extinct species & souls & grace,

bagging game, winning arms

contracts and sports contests

is his game, he grins to much applause.

*

Burma ink blots the copy book.

Kamikaze ravens blacken the sky.

Rivers run red with eutrophic bacteria

and the sea is a plastic stew.

*

Seb goes out in a blaze of glory

in a dust-storm, gripped

by the talons of a djinn,

returns some day on the shores of Amazon,

blow-pipe in hand, or veiled

in the depths of the desert,

bent on revenge.