Etudes: #01 - Sun-King

BEHOLD! The skye's red eye, dolefully gazing down from his velvet-clad throne, stains the rims of night's bowl with his lilac tears, and blinks adieu. The joys of day are almost a-gone, and even the memories of more jubilant times but shrug goodbye 'Tis the time! the curtains be closed, and the darkling cloak of eve be pierced with diamond-shining starlight. Below too, in the golden palaces of sun-king, last rites are observed and final tunes played with sombre lutes. The gilt-crowned domes and the arching halls now echo with the last music! play and be played! dance and be danced! The time's of short supply and night honours not the works of the day!

His throne is of thousand inanimate blossoms, finer than in the finest of paradises, and sprawls up and onwards like a garden of thousand intricate colours from the worn marble-ground of the greatest hall. The figure lounging on the wondrous seat is of sensual and refined features, undeniably beutiful man of undeterminable age; his thoughts are hid behind the solemn cloud that covers his face, allowing no insights to the mind within, his head rests on the palm of the unmoving hand. 'Tis the time! when all focus is gathered for farewells, and all powers yawn and yearn for asleep... yet, for the reason none will know, as he lounges on his petal-clad throne, he feels a melancholy strain. And suddenly, as if by the effect of some tinted lens, all he views now coloured with new spectrum, with nothing unchanged and all familiarity gone - what foreign light has entered the fields of sun?

As he rises from his scarlet-dyed seat, all dancing suddenly stops, all music is gone; thousand courtiers heartbroken fall. Three steps echo in the silence, descending from the dais of sun-king he shrugs awake from multitude of dozing, half-awake dreams. "What blackest of black insults is this? Who has my heart access'd, and swiftly the blood flowing through it till water exchange'd?" And 'tis the time! when all focus is gathered for farewells, and all powers yawn and yearn for asleep... but now has all clamour stopped, and baffled silence reigns; the red sun himself - but unblinkingly stares.

Comments: Lately some furious agency has accused me that the quality of poetry has been in decrease. It's probably true, good poetry needs both exquisite aesthetic vision and deep thought (so has someone said, anyway), and unfortunately time's of short supply these days. In any case, here's a brief etude, or practice piece.