The Last Laugh: Part I

A step into confusion, random thinking, call the piper in. Play piper play! Play your sweet melodies and muses and allow me to while away the hours in a peaceful haze. Halt! I need the silence, the whispering silence of the winds, speaking of days gone. Days of dreams and passion sweet. Cool autumn wind prickling our skin on a stairway to desire. Step back and see the sun, a violent orange disk in the sky. Oh where have we gone? In darkness I dwell alone, my candle's flame quenched. Oh where has the sun gone? Sand slips through my fingers and away it goes with the wind. Oh the wind, calling your name. I look but you I cannot find. Only the grim faces of the cruel masses. And where have you gone? Off, away from me, slipped from my arms and I am cast into the foamy brine. Waves coursing over me as I am gone, sinking, slipping, fading, drowning, what sweet feeling. Where have I gone? Away fleeing a fragile escape from the pain of loss and a broken heart. Slipping away into the summer sun. Is there no refuge? Is there no safe port in view? Outcast of the outcast, lonliest of the lonely. And still I ask, where have I gone? Have I lost? Is the battle over before it has begun? Where is the white flag of surrender? Where are the trumps of victory? Step to the side, slip away. Tears. Tears on my cheeks I knew not were there. Hold me, deny the dawn, stay forever. Your lips soft and full, meet mine in a kiss. Was it the kiss of doom? Where did we go wrong? A word, a single word, and the crystal shatters, will it ne'r be together again? Sunlight dances on the tears on my cheeks, reflecting, refracting, bending, and splitting, a brief rainbow. Is there peace at last? Is all not yet lost? Or is it the eye of the storm? Questioning glances from the audience as the stage is set. The piper steps in and plays, a death concerto. Praise the cloaked figure, the one no man can stop from coming. All hail! I sit, quietly, alone. The pain, the tears, the silence all around. Acts of desperation. The King is dead, we must mourn his passing. He hath gone from whence he came. No light at the end of the tunnel, brick, stone, cold. Weariness from within. Is this how it ends? Where have we gone? Where has the sun gone? Where have you gone? Where have I gone? Away, away, with the morning mists, all fantasies one by one, away! The piper lies in a pool of blood, eyes gouged from his skull. The jester laughs. And in the quiet of my padded cell, so do I.
November 23, 1989