Dinner at Elsinore

The room is lit with tallow fat

and the shadows whisper like thieves,

like the leaves in autumn, circumflant.

in the slashes of ladies' sleeves.

The food is served in platters high

while the servants snicker and sneer

at the fools in motley circumvest

where the princeling wallows in beer.

The king is dead from kindred's knife

and the traitors cackle like crows,

as the monks in cloisters circumvect

what the coffers have long enclosed.

The mead is drunk from jewelled cups

and the salvers are stained with piss.

Do the nobles in stupor circumspect

know the castle has come to this?

Reviews

[Dayran]

A wonderful description of the goings on in a personality ... given to introspect with concern at society and change. An accurate reminder of growing up with eyes true to innocence and the heart anticipating belief in all that is best. Its a feast for a believer's love of humanity's possibilities. Touching.

[Roland Petrov]

So many circum words but not a scythe in sight! There's a lake Elsinore in the county I live in, but it pales in historical importance to the waterway your castle refers to. Too bad Sheik Spear will never read this poem. Best poem I read tonight.

[Nomenklatura]

Thanks for the compliment Roland. I often wonder what - or maybe whom - he would have written about, had he lived today. Stalin, Hitler, Roosevelt, Churchill, Mao?
Ewan