I Went To See The King Today

I went to the temple to see the King today
Because I’d heard he wasn’t doing well
They showed me in and softly then, the heavy doors swung to
Leaving echoes as my footsteps fell

From the dark, into an arc of soft white light I came
I could see he was asleep there on his throne
And regal though he was, there was a sadness to the scene
An aging king, left there all alone

I went to the see the King today - I saw his gnarled hands
And in my mind I felt a subtle snap
Those hands once wrested fireballs from sunburst Strats and Teles
But now those hands lay limp upon his lap

I took a seat there at his feet, and listened as he breathed
His barrel chest now sunken, rose and fell
And once I thought I heard the slightest whispered melody
It might have been a sigh - I couldn’t tell

I went to the temple to see the King today
His minions scurried, hushed and heads all bowed
Urgently they bent to tasks of unknown purpose
Finding truth too grim to speak out loud

And like a cancer I inflicted my appearance there
Urged to leave by disembodied calls
As if I were a clot in their efficient artery
They flowed around me in those garish halls

And when I saw the King was not to wake for me that day
That he might never even know I’d been
I detached and let myself be flushed away downstream
Away from the hive and the maladies within.

I went to the temple to see the King today
To pay a final tribute to the man
For in the end that’s what he was - royalty or no
He could stay no longer than the least of us can