The Great Spectacle

I knew him before they shackled him to chair I contend, none knew him better than I He's tall, charming, quite an elegant air An athlete lissom, a kite in the sky What happened you asked, what so deformed him Crippled his independence, left him ill? The doctors said osteo-arthritis But a disease is never its own cause. I will tell you how he told me, listen There is a madness meaningless in us. The happy night I went to sleep, we lay Like children in each other's arms, snoring The cockcrow and bird call woke the new day Fresh air and old love, and life adoring Shall we breakfast with family today Or to some lake, picnic paired, wander free A vehement no, a tone for the fray I rose for the bathroom, shocked at lost glee. I would return in silence, let her speak The calf gets more milk just by being meek. One step from hallway and into the room I felt a sharp pain announcing my doom A shadow from behind a door, a groan My loins exploded in my head, nothing more. How long was it, I cannot tell, a moan Of pity, a kinder hand to restore Consciousness again. The back crumbled then Degenerated more and more with time Things smelling salts and linament can't mend He functioned well in intervening years Running, swimming, the ardent athlete A few interruptions, grimace and tears For wasted life and love and great defeat You do not start from bottom starting new Again, but from a deeper hole of doubt A deeper fear. It crippled him he knew Not how, nor how deep the scar remain. Out Now, you must go; leave the great spectacle The man who prayed without miracle And yet still believe this end serves some cause Some greater purpose than himself. I pause To reflect, then limped away, the sick loin Begins in the old sickness of the mind. What could he not have done, the great lovers He denied for honor, the high esteem Of wealth and fickle praise, but love covers More than faults in the mangling of the dream. The scholar, the poet, the statesman too Wears shackle invisible on the heart. Love measures the height of what we may do Yet men go all the way in, not in part. See your great spectacle bound to a chair, Crippled, defeated ... perhaps, something there Strangely smiling, beyond the eyes of fear He's tall, charming, quite an elegant air.