A RENT IN THE TAPESTRY

Posted by Admin on 25 January 2009, 12:00 am

She lured him from a line of kings.
Enthralled, he put aside his crown –
renounced a life of service for
a playboy round at Biarritz
and Cannes – exchanged the orb
and sceptre for a set of drums.
Now widowed, in her Paris home
ennui pervades her silent hours,
nostalgia niggles and evokes
the ghosts of melodies to which
they danced in waltz-time.
And neither paratrooper guard
nor bedside weapon will repel
the poignant past, replete with those
now old or dead – those hedonists
who shared the frittered, ineffective
years.

In solitude she bids goodnight
the man no longer there – his room
a shrine to circumscribed, unblest,
and self-indulgent love – the love
that rocked a throne on which he would
have set her queen.
And now, between commercial spiels,
amusing those to whom the fate
of kings is less important than
their soccer pools, the scandal lives
again.

They say the Duchess disapproves.

T. C. Hudson

© T. C. Hudson.

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