NO HEAD OF GILLES DE RAIS

He has absolutely no skill in defending himself. He moves about violently from one impulse to another, which destroys him.

I insist: this is a child.

But this child had at his disposal a fortune that appeared inexhaustible to him and nearly absolute power.

                                    --Georges Bataille, The Trial of Gilles de Rais

We will never see the satanic head or eye

of Gilles de Rais made fabulous in paint

or carving. All facets of his dream-world—

voraciously prismatic—are kept in the book of tortures

the vile bon-bons of his fancy

fell from his brain, to pulsate on his tongue,

wherever chapel boys swelled with song

in Champtocé, La Suze, Tiffauges, Machecoul.

Gilles derived from a long line

of war-lords

and rabbit-faced prodigies.

At his trial at Nantes he doubted not

to be convicted, then burnt, by temporal authorities

but nor to be forgiven by the Church,
which owed him much

& whose children he had raped and devoured

rejoicing

wherever chapel boys swelled with song,

in Champtocé, La Suze, Tiffauges, Machecoul.