A LETTER TO FRANCOIS VILLON(1431-1463?)

You vanish from our view like a thief

out of a burgled house at night;

no clerk raised an alarm,

no dog of parchment barked;

you vanish, made your escape

- to the gallows, we presume.

We can't imagine you, Francois,

repenting and living to an old age

of fifty or sixty as some rural

parson or a city clerk;

we can't, we won't -

we have given you a role,

and a role comes with a last scene

to crown you with your tragic fate -

and what is a bad boy repented

but a disappointing bore to us?

Your life, Francois,

was a Brian de Palma movie:

In a long death scene it must end.

Somewhere you slowly turned

in the wind, rotting -

this fate we have assigned

to our thief, lost in the mist of time;

but perhaps it was an easier death

that came to you; in some

cheap tavern a knife

between ribs, or

feverish last days hallucinating

at a monastery infirmary,

a town hospital for the poor -

or perhaps the plague,

that came to punish the sins

of the wicked nations of Europe

again on the blessed year 1464,

covered you with boils

and took you to meet

the men you killed.

Perhaps that death

we, the adoring generations,

could accept -

even a priest on the death-bed,

if one could be found

or some saintly foolhardy Franciscan,

to hear your confession

and give you hope of Heaven

via the divine tortures of Purgatory.

That we could accept,

if some doubt could be cast,

whether you really repented,

or like Pascal thought

it wise to believe

and cast your religious dice

on the Catholic God.

As long as it was

cinematic enough

we can give you that,

de Montcorbier or Loges

or whatever your real name was.