Leonora by Geraldus John

While the minimal and unobtrusive tapping
Of the hangman resonates from behind,
Freedom hammers on the prison gate.
The Fidelio four invoke harmonies
Which, with uncultivated beauty,
Innocently bewilder and implant
In all a sense of a false security.
Following a brief diminuendo
The plot lacking crystal clarity
Progresses but poses vital questions:
Can the master, with discipline and stealth,
Achieve clarification by resolution?

As if in answer the voltage jolts, trumpets soar,
And emotion charged with a kinetic tension
That even formality can scarce contain,
Lets out a searing cry of deliverance.
For this was, of all his conceptions, the one
That gave the cruellest of birth pains.

Smouldering with tonal sincerity
Creativity is the bedrock of passion,
A woman dedicated to a love
Capable of piercing prison walls,
A dreamer exploring the essence of her nightmare
From which she alone can distil reality,
Reality that enables her to rekindle hope,
Hope that compensates her feminine frailty.

Meanwhile, with cold blooded intention,
The fiend turns a nasty situation
Into his, even nastier, advantage.
Timpani and brass vigorously vibrate
To spit and splutter in protestation
As they anticipate Armageddon.
But right prevails as, with eerie crescendos,
Bone drying winds rattle the graveyard and horns,
Anticipating Wagnarian grandeur,
Induce turbulent woodwinds to pause;
Then wallow in the delights of victory.

Sheltering in a glow of forgiveness
All unite in a visionary coda,
And proceed with incandescent intensity
To rest in the surreal sound of silence.