On Ionesco's Exit the King Viewed From A Distant, Jeweled Telescope

the golden rats have slipped now from the silver ships

cried the old king now that's daylight's done

and dusted cold rust is flaking from the sun

and all horizons telescope to one that is tilting

and aground. aground he cried! the thieves

are at the door with their enameled swords;

their brand new heraldry. 

the councilors withdrawn

to the flooded ports I cannot sense or see.

o tell me the Mysteries one by one

and is the bishop crowned

and have we come to fight, at the end

only these old shadows on the walls.

on the high walls, neither house nor home

mid the brimming light

and the twilight foam that slips from the sea

like a fog that knew me long ago when I was free

from clouds, at home with my paper ships

in a tender light, gilded and so far

it seemed, from this eclipse

mary angela douglas 7 october 2014

Note on the poem: I saw this moving, arresting play when I was at Fontbonne college in the early spring of 1970, I think.

I have never forgotten the atmosphere of that play and the beauty of it which is, of course a kind of fairy tale meditation on death, at least, that's how it felt to me in that production.