COMMUNITY
My community of frightful friends knows no bounds : there
will be hundreds of them drowning if the ship goes down.
Storybook guys, like Ray and Peter; annoying facsimiles
like Ted and Butch. The strange and the beautiful, like
Helen and Gabrielle, Eleanor and Cindy Mae. I wish
I could kiss them all.
-
Here, in the half-light, I'll put down my pen and laugh a
little : my whole life's a gentle put-on; that 'stolen moment'
all cadavers know. The freeze-zone choir is bound to
start singing just when I want quiet.
-
Out there, in the spectacle'd audience - only a few of
which I can see beneath the kleig lights - I know there's
squirming and giggles. People here for their first. They've
never seen a play like this, and don't know what to expect.
The curtain goes up, and then disappears. They're startled
at once, and then the smokescreen dissolves, from behind
which I come. To them I am clothed, but I really feel naked.
-
I start out, already in my arrears. I owe them everything, yet
have nothing with which to pay. A distant point, I see, is
moving about - an usher with a flashlight? Or is that a
God itself, coming here to have a look? I don't know,
but keep acting. Jesus almighty, keep acting and
don't stop now.
-
Some canticle witch, a girl in a robe, gets up and starts
singing : I think she's an angel, but I don't remember
writing her into the script, nor how she got here at all.
Deus ex Machina. Yes, that's probably the one. Only
in theater do they have all these terms. Bold lighting,
newer angles, a stage with a proscenium arch, from
which I can sadly play, one last time, my meager part.
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