The last Cordelia

'O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.

-La Belle Dame Sans Merci
John Keats

__________________________________

What can ail thee,
But a smattering of self, broken
reflections in age-worn mirrors
Too old to back-date.

On which you weep elegy,
Scrawling lines of woe etched,
Of who where when,
sometime or
Other, life trampled hard enough,
though not nearly.

Is it man who breathes, yet
With each gasp, manacles one’s throat
To stifle breath? Is it man who drinks,
Yet with each gurgle, envision death?

Is it man who lives, yet
With each moment spoil,
the steady beats to which life pulsates?

Is it man who loves, yet
With each moment deny,
This gentle loving gently wake?

Lave, lave the suffixes
of full Abandon! The man drowning in sand,
will at his last soliloquy take
some living weed, to make lavish
His sepulcher.

This is your Dionysian joy.

For which you live,
For which you, will I destroy.

No man's land.

Amazing how in the grand scheme of things,
between the mad-rush and voting boxes,
You stand dictator,
as ailing Democracy is vetoed,
and majority loses its last war.

This is no time for mavericks,
Bombs tick your ambition
while all other dreams
Detonate.

Seemingly self-defeating
Seemingly triumphant
Stoically non-partisan

You slash the jugular –
Knife curved like a smile.

Soon there will be three bags full.