King Lear, John Lyons (24 x 30 cm, oil on canvas)

A method to the madness
         an underlying grid a pattern
an old canvas pitted with pigment
         swathed in buff titanium
upon which a trellis of cadmium red
         and finally gentle strokes of the brush
to deposit patches of burnt umber
         ashes to ash applied

Out of the earth Lear and his daughters
         and the love that each has or has not
a stage for the passage of time
         for a shift in the power of prevailing winds
Choices choices as the blood circulates
        as the words vanish along with their breath
into thin air : the play is always the thing
         the capture of colour under the fading light

When I was a boy I would have sold
         my kingdom for a horse for a pony
to carry me off into the sunset
         Now age has mottled my skin
and confined me to local horizons
         under a heavy head of silver hair
I gather my dust and count
         the few blessings that remain
: on my lips the tempestuous taste of real love
         as in Spitalfields where the final curtain fell

John Lyons