Tag Archives: fantasy

IF I WERE TO DISAPPEAR

if I were to disappear
on the night of the performance
don’t tell anyone, say
nothing
    a big quiet nothing
like Hamlet might say stretching
the bounds of
our understanding, sheer
human appreciation
though so soft
      no one on stage with him
in that room of Elsinore,
can (we must
believe) hear a single word
he has been scrtpted to say

No, my dear Thato, just
blow a kiss, all three
of you
    blow a kiss
and walk away

knowing I glided through
that fourth wall
like it
   was made of silk, cobweb fine
or most diaphanous

and now
I am with King Harry
asking to lead the voward
and so
   will get butchered by the French in the
course of the battle

if you have to get butchered
who better than the French
to do it with style
with every cut
every thrust
   reciting every great poet
of theirs from Ronsard
to Rimbaud
and me
      held in suspense
awaiting the beauty of
their perfect coup-de-gras

or
   there you are my Queen
peeling grapes, chewing dates
awaiting your Apollo
your
     Roman lion, your Anthony

and we too wedded to ourselves
to smell the ships leaving port
sailing south fat
with legionaries

our deaths
the first act of Empire, suddenly
out of nowhere this
worst of all
glorious phases
in the history
of oppressed humanity

but then
as Puck himself
I return to the stage
at the waking
moment of your Midsummer
dream

craving understanding,
friendship
   and forgiveness

see the lights go on
and you
     my dear three
and all
around you
       simply disappear