A poem about the Voynich Manuscript from Sandra Simonds II

The History of Asemic Writing as Told by Our Asemic Writer's Illuminations



In the Voynich Manuscript, 1534,
our speaker, King Rudolfo the Eighth (who is also an
amateur herbalist
with an extensive knowledge
of the powers of chamomile) develops
a false writing system of nymphs
that predict Morgellon's disease, an unexplained
dermopathy wherein spools of black and red
thread emerge from a patient's skin.

This thread spells out his latest
musings on Catherine Las Crusas
living in Des Moines, Iowa whose
face is startlingly reminiscent of
a black widow who has just killed
her mate. Due to her position
at the university as a researcher
of lesser Medieval manuscripts,
she is able to provide authorities
with a pithy analysis of her abdomen.

“Sit still and hear the last of our sea-sorrow,”
Catherine says to her audience
of law enforcement officers and barons.
She continues, “When a contract is awarded
by the CDC to Kaiser Permanente's Northern
California Division of Research to assist
in the investigation of this condition,
lacking all maternal instincts, the bodies
of the homeless will be
drawn into our manuscript by our illustrator
King Rudolfo the Eighth.”