Desolation Or La Reine Impitoyable D’elsinor.13.7.10 Poem by Roy William Gotaas

Throne of my heart a long while empty,  
Divinity, its rites and orisons abandoned:
Orb, sceptre, crown no more cross-topped
But baubles ‘bandoned lightly in the dust.

Throne-room dim with edgeless shadows
Light and highlights weakened
That once made radiant where she sat,
Now darkly barred by windows grime. 

Crumbling walls of my heart’s keep,
Open thus to any healing breeze,
Echo back my weary sighing - - 
But the rusty wind-vane never turns for me.

From fractured parapet the circling view
Shows signs of life elsewhere,
But out of my rotting Elsinor
I cannot find the will to tear myself.

Why stay to haunt this place,
Empty, joyless, ruined of hope?
I stand among the tumbled stone
Whistling like a lonely boy.

I know that in the night the queen returns;
Unretinued in double darkness
Of closed eyes, she glides beside me
Warming my if-only world.

Even when the walls had doors
And doors had locks and guards,
Nothing could keep her out;
For she knew cunningly the secret ways.

Now there’s no pretense of holding her at bay
But I lie silently with neither joy nor fear
Upon the bed which was her altar,
Whereon so many hearts were sacrificed.

To feel her shape beside me,
To hear her husky murm’ring of sweet lies
Poisoning my ear, while eyes of memory
Remind my fingers how her magic body was - -

Is all there is. Memory cannot hold a scent:
Only I recall how it felt breathing her musk.
So small these remnant joys might seem to others
But how much greater than the nothing of the day.