Tshcinag and Groddeck What drew me to the poem? I am always curious and fascinated at poetic mysteries. That is, what is the poet really talking about? What line or lines offers a clue (or clues) to the purpose of the poem? The post itself is somewhat confusing and even vague. "The only thing that comes to mind is that it's about abuse between a father and a boy," the post explains. I will try to evaluate and critique the post along with the poem.

The post offers some interesting approaches to understanding the poem. But while I agree that the father apparently doesn't know what the boy is thinking or seeing, and doesn't really relate to the boy's feelings, I don't immediately relate to the assertion that the father is the abuser. I'm not saying it isn't possible that the father is the abuser but when the father says, "Come now, or seize you is what I'll do," that is a possible opening to abuse.

The statement in the blog that poems "…need to have a souls and a spirit,"...

Why would a poem necessarily reflect a demon inside people? Certainly there are such poems, but in this case there is too much mystery involved to be sure of anything.
That having been said, it would appear that the boy sees what his father doesn't or won't see. First the "Invisible King with ermine and staff"; an ermine is a kind of weasel, and why would he have a staff? Moreover, how can the boy see a weasel when he is hiding his face? Or did the boy see something and to lessen the shock and the fear, he hid his face?

Is the line, "the terrified father rides wilder and wilder" an indication doesn't necessarily portend that the father will hurt the boy? I'm not sure about that.

Let's say the boy is hallucinating, which he may be. If so he is terrified. He sees a king and a weasel but his father…