Shakespeare ZA is pleased to publish new work by South African poet Geoffrey Haresnape - a poignant take on King Lear.
OLD MONEY
“I am a very foolish, fond old man
Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less
And to deal plainly,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind”
1.
He has been –
when all is said and done –
at the top of the heap.
But now
with geriatric issues
kicking in
it seems the time
to leave his assets
for the younger strengths
of his attractive daughters.
A will and testament
divides his estate
into three portions –
weighted to reflect
his children’s relative importance.
This document
is shown them in his sick room
Clearly, there are spoils for the taking.
Some ‘oos’ and ‘ahs’ –
together with awareness of the Reaper
waiting in the wings –
seduce him to indulge himself.
“Tell me, my daughters
whom of you shall I say loves me most?”
The eldest
croons arpeggios.
Dearer than eyesight she loves him,
dearer than life, beauty, health, honour.
Her father flourishes
like a rain-frog
in her flood of eloquence.
Before her eyes he dangles
wine farms, a city penthouse, blocks of flats
in ownership perpetual
to herself and all her family.
This done, he asks:
“What says my second daughter?”
He finds
her just like the first ...
excepting that
her heart belongs exclusively
to daddy.
This is his little kitten!
The patriarch is smitten;
as many titbits of his real estate
as he has promised to her sister
are dropped into her bowl.
A third remains:
his favorite, tender, youngest,
lovely one.
She understands him
like his own heartbeat.
She’ll outdo what the others say
and make him special.
“What can you say
to draw a third
more opulent than your sisters?”
Her too brief answer
is a body-blow.
Panickey,
he advises her to use more words.
“Nothing will come of nothing.”
He sees her jaw-line
that is like his own
jut stubbornly
as she presents
some argument.
“I cannot heave my heart
into my mouth”
She tells him,
that her love is as it ought to be.
No more, nor less.
Does she believe
that she’ll expropriate his land
without a word
of heart-felt compensation?
Dementia’s tapeworm
squirms up
from his gut
to touch his tongue root
with its obscene tickling.
He rises on one elbow
in his bed to bluster:
“Get out of my sight.
You truth will be your legacy.
Your sisters can
digest your share.”
He’s hot to crush her with a codicil.
2.
Time shows its pulses
in a million digitals
while some old clockwork
strikes the hours
in a traditional way.
Two girls
that once were honey sweet
are souring
grudging.
They put their trust
in lipstick and mascara,
driven
by their large libidos,
sassy thighs.
All alone
he bangs his temple
with a weary fist.
His weakness
needs the crumbs
that they let fall
from their expensive tables.
The youngest one
is with her partner
far away.
At last he’s told
that his disease
is terminal.
Oh, the waves of weakness:
how they come.
Each finger’s movement is a weight.
His breaths go in and out in toil.
Why did he spurn his dearest? Why?
He is afraid to change
what his legalities have done.
3.
Six thousand patient miles
and then her Uber scrunches to his door.
What smiles
and consternations!
What tears
when his too greatly absent darling
touches him.
He feels
that he is necklaced
with a burning tyre
of shame.
“I know you do not love me.
You have some cause.”
She will not hear
of it.
Her hand
upon his cheek
is balm.
4.
Knowing
that she will visit him again ...
he sleeps and dreams.
His certainty forgets
the slips and slides
of the beloved country.
Her lodging is attacked
by what they call the crowbar gang
and she becomes the victim
of an undiscriminating blade.
Some thirty stab wounds
mutilate her neck
and unresisting back.
She is bled out
before the parameds arrive.
He howls and howls.
Frail age
cannot contain this thing.
They take him in a wheel-chair
to the view-site
in the funeral home.
The staff
have cosmetized
her lacerations well.
She’s clenched
inside her open coffin
like a broken doll.
He wonders why
a dog, a horse, a rat
should have that thing
called life
and she no life at all.
She will not come again.
The family flinch
to hear him start his mantra
of the “Never” word.
So great a load, so great a load
of love and suffering.
Between the spoked wheels
of his senile chariot
he seems to wilt
like some old oak tree
severed from its roots.
Suddenly his throat
is clicking
Does he believe
her patched-up effigy
still breathes?
Can he be hoping
at the heart of loss?
An awkward smile
irradiates his wrinkles.
as his carer wheels him out
into a blaze
of light.