Weather Advisory: A long one*
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Be not fooled,
by the evening-tide,
be not deceived
by the quietude,
tis not a reprieve
of day before dark.
Be guarded,
for the easy transformation,
a tranquil shedding
of the day's husk,
into the faded light of dusk,
just one of nature's machinations
to delay the inevitable.
Evening-tide,
a colored compilation
of a few mischievous hours,
when sunlight is invaded by
streaks of pink, azure and gold,
just before the
palette is plunged
into a stainless steel can
of gothic black,
skyied glory rendered into
common house paint.
Evening-tide,
an alleged easy calm
surfeits some souls,
supposed easy passage from
the day's contusions to
a relaxation from humankind's regulations and rules,
but not for me.
Evening-tide,
when appetites unsated, simmer,
the in between hours when
humans transform themselves,
from day laborers to creatures
desiring, aroused, hungry
for night time pleasures,
searching with false courage for
boundary lines to sever.
Evening-tide,
it was at evening-tide that
David espied, desired and
stole Bathsheba for his own,
with a King's arrogance
rent a kingdom,
murdered for profit,
birthed an Heir,
a prince, who wrote,
by evening-tide:
I have seen all the works
that are done under the sun; and,
behold, all is vanity
and vexation of spirit.
Evening-tide,
fear closes my throat,
confusion reappears,
a low grade flu infects
deemed persistent, incurable,
revisits, medicine resistant,
my insights, my speech,
to blind and bind
Am I Gloucester,
blinded, but faculties
possessing vision,
the future to clarify?
No, no, it is to a king,
Lear,
to whom I am
son and cousin,
kith and kin
Sunset visions of
ultimate demise
ours eyes behold,
but plainly put,
at Evening-tide,
our dementia -
a precursor,
a periodic but hostile guest
in the hostel of our memories,
cracks and fractures us,
spirit first, body second.
We are bound helpless
by a knotted tongue,
slow dying malingerer,
inside a head of ill repute,
unable to locate our knowing,
and every word selected,
a battle galactic, oft lost
Evening-tide,
I am cold,
and the issued command
is bring an umbrella
to warm and cover.
What an old fool am I,
tis not blanket or a
Bathsheba I seek,
but at Evening-tide,
Babel's nefarious treasury of words
unlocked, for tis closed,
the gatekeepers,
drunk and absent,
drunk on absinthe,
and creme de mentia
and I have no key
Evening-tide, prithee,
I beg of thee,
consideration please,
check this hideous amusement,
that makes this
King's speech confused,
odor of smokeless cordite ignited
where the synapses have burnt,
injured, beyond repair
injured, by mine own aging.
Reverse the diagnosis
of the panel of wordsmiths:
Alas, weep and be comforted...
Evening-tide,
a reverie of colored tears,
downward sloping,
arrive to tingle my tongue,
warming comfort for an *****
willing but unable,
a wounded soldier,
a veteran of poetry,
now prone and pained
beyond repair,
beyond healing,
immunized to the
heat and solder,
drugs and salves,
that heretofore
might have closed
the cracks of rack and ruin
Evening-tide,
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and
all the king's men couldn't
put Humpty together again^
Evening-tide,
my hair, the color of old age.
Irony, my skin yet smooth,
unwrinkled, not in need of the
toxins that are employed
to fill crevasses on
the outer banks of age of comedy
Alas, the toxins natural from within
have seeped from their
latent resting place and have
contaminated the groundwater
that lubricated my mind,
from siege engines poured,
a contamination of
mine own making.
After a life long battle,
my Jericho walls have fallen.
Lear and I faint recall the love
of our beloved Cordelia,
but try as we might
her name escapes our grasp,
******* by bite of aging's asp.
We grow drunk by night
on a drink not of choice,
unhappy fury,
the residue within
the imprisoned poison
of our polluted tears,
that come only after our
misspoken and misshapen
guttural croaks
of our Eveningtide prayers
are both
unintelligible and unrequited
Written 6/01/11, after seeing Derek Jacobi as King Lear. This poem is about my fears of dementia which people close to me suffer from, sadly. Now, I struggle to recall names and places. Poetry, not so much because I get to pick and choose words at my own speed. But someday, who knows....the time between day and night, is a metaphor for a beautiful slow, slipping away but
be not deceived
by the quietude,
tis not a reprieve
of day before dark.
^ this rhyme, purportedly a child's view of siege engines that could not break the walled of the City of Gloucester (how ironic!) in 1643
An abbreviated version of this poem goes like this:
Nat went to see King Lear,
Then went down to the beach
To watch the sun set, the evening arrive,
They both reminded him, of his fear
That someday he'll probably sunset like Lear
And end the play, the eve, mad, his mind deceived,
De-worded, defanged, his poetry retired, but not relieved
