I'll turn a rime about sweet fuck all     None of me in it, nor you     Nothing loves
                 Nothing's young     Nothing at all      Nothing came to me while napping on my horse

                 All the malady in my trembling     I read it on the ground     I know a shamanic doctor
                 who doesn't?     he'll do if he cures me      I'll die if he won't

                 I don't know my horoscope      and I don't give a shit      I have no accent and no
                 language      it's not my fault      ghouls did this to me      in the mountainous dark

                 I know Nothing about the ground    Who breathes there? In the fields?    Shut up.    the
                 ground is only pain    it is my equal     not my shelter

                 I turn Nothing in the dark    inarticulate  wheel for strangers     from Poitiers outwards     
                 if ever you're untied     return my tongue

                 If no-one tells me, I don't know    if I'm asleep or not     I'm split right to my gut     this
                 heart leaks only grief    mice pray for me! saints also!

                 My lover is an unlearned word    who disappeared like faith    weightless     no matter 
                 no call     no other guest I'll shelter

                 Nothing's given or wronged    Nothing's noble or gorgeous    Nothing's worthy     if I see 
                 not I'm worthless    never have I seen what I must love

                 This concludes my version    of Farai un vers de dreyt nien     sung around 1086   by
                 William IX of Aquitaine     Count of Poitiers     lover of many women

They see each other first when they are nine years old. When they are 18
years old they pass each other on the street and she greets him. He then
dreams she eats his flaming heart. He has commanded her to do so. He
writes a rhyming sonnet describing this dream, the dream in which the girl
has eaten his heart, which he held out to her in his two hands. Then he has
many other dreams and visions, which he also records in rhyming poems.
He describes their circumstances in prose. And also in prose he describes
each poem that he writes.

Was there more weeping and fainting and shaking then than we have now?
I do feel that in these past six decades I have wept a lot. There was more
rhyme.

Love is dictated. Throbbing possesses you. Trembling also possesses you.
You stand all dumb.  Your senses disfigure you. Your thoughts become
images. All of the four elements touch your condition. Your pulse stops. You
write a sonnet. You are then silent.

What is the end of love? Its end is to greet, by means of praise, with poor
words. Though you’re burning, live gently.

What is beauty? It operates on your heart. It confirms the speech of love.

What is the glance? The peace that death disquieteth. Show me your face.
Wake me.

Alba

love is the cushion of politics

when the foliage is thick

love is the condition of politics

for fifteen nights and days

love is the cushion of politics

our spit is the fluid of politics

love is the condition of politics

our spit is sap

love is the cushion of politics

we are greenwood

love is the condition of politics

new life is what we search for

love is the cushion of politics

we are so close to the cushion

love is the condition of politics

as it sustains our breath

love is the cushion of politics

prolongs its note

love is the condition of politics

night shall give us day

love is the cushion of politics 

now broken

love is the condition of politics

one hour outlasts ten years

love is the cushion of politics

or else disguised

love is the condition of politics

the learner hearkens

love is the cushion of politics

now with full note

love is the condition of politics

spit is our cushion

love is the cushion of politics

under greenwood

love is the condition of politics

one hand speaks to the other

love is the cushion of politics

time is our cushion

love is the condition of politics

love’s work shall moisturize

love is the cushion of politics

light pierces the darkness

Lisa Robertson is the author of the novel The Baudelaire Fractal
(Coach House Books, 2020) and numerous books of poems, including
3 Summers (Coach House Books, 2016) and the forthcoming Boat
(Coach House Books, 2022). She lives in the Nouvelle Aquitaine region
of France. wide rime is her ongoing study of and experiment with the
medieval vernacular poetry of that region.