Wole Soyinka’s poems are very descriptive and often focus on the atmosphere of the environment around the scene. It is clearly reflected in this poem as well, as the poet explained in the setting of the poem.

Blue diaphane, tobacco smoke
Serpentine on wet film and wood glaze,
Mutes chrome, wreathes velvet drapes,
Dims the cave of mirrors. Ghost fingers
Comb seaweed hair, stroke acquamarine veins
Of marooned mariners, captives
Of Circe’s sultry notes. The barman
Dispenses igneous potions ?
Somnabulist, the band plays on.

The poem is set in a tavern, where a range of people from different walks of life have gathered. The poet describes the tobacco smokes, music, voice of the singer, and even alcohol drinks (denoted by igneous potions). The smoke emerging from the pipes of sailors and other men looks like a serpent crawling on the wet tables of the tavern. The smoke has blurred out the interiors of the place. Due to smoke and dimly lit tavern, no one is clearly visible, and it seems as if just fingers are materializing out of nowhere, handing out drinks to the people.

The dancer in the tavern comes and combs the hair of the sailors, she strikes their arms sometimes and flirts with them, and everyone is enticed by the sultry voice and by the notes which she is singing.

Cocktail mixer, silvery fish
Dances for limpet clients.
Applause is steeped in lassitude,
Tangled in webs of lovers’ whispers
And artful eyelash of the androgynous.
The hovering notes caress the night
Mellowed deep indigo ?still they play.

The cocktail mixer in the bar looks like a silver fish dancing for its clients. The entire tavern is not energetic but is rather lethargic as everyone is intoxicated from all the alcohol consumption. Some of the visitors are busy tangled in the thoughts of their lover, while some other are enticed by the artful eyes of the performer. The swaying notes of the music, the enticing movements of the dancer, and the dancing of the smoke, added with the effect of alcohol, made people enjoy themselves and they did not notice when the day turned to night (Mellowed deep indigo), but even then, the tunes of the music lingered in the air.

Departures linger. Absences do not
Deplete the tavern. They hang over the haze
As exhalations from receded shores. Soon,
Night repossesses the silence, but till dawn
The notes hold sway, smoky
Epiphanies, possessive of the hours.

The people are have delayed departure, and they are due to leave. Absences do no deplete the tavern, and consume it into total silence. The music and notes keep on playing.

This music’s plaint forgives, redeems
The deafness of the world. Night turns
Homewards, sheathed in notes of solace, pleats
The broken silence of the heart.

The soulful cries of the music provides a kind of relief to the deafness of the dark night. As the night recedes, everyone forgets about their reason for being sorrowful. The music acts as a calming agent, taking away the silences of the broken hearts. In the small hours that people share, they forget about their sorrows in life, and cries of the their broken heart and also silences of their hurt souls.