victorclaude
01-06-2007, 09:09 AM
the stage of time
while waiting in the prison of time
for the turnkey to unlock my cell--
studying walls of the cage i’m in,
glittering alleys stretch before my
tainted vision, and with jaded eyes
i witness the life of the world.
gone now, innocence of youth,
and what follows innocence but
more of the same in
different costume?
you just can’t take a part from the whole
and expect what is left to stand without it.
you may shuffle the parts,
the turnkey
just said so through the bars while he looked
at his watch and shook his head
which meant that i would do another
day in the hands of time.
i foolishly asked him once if i would
know when my sentence was come to its end,
he looked at me with the queerest askance i
had ever seen and never seen since,
with a laugh that was nearly a smirk
of kindness, i realized he had no idea whatever.
i asked him for a weekend pass or if i could
have a word with the script writer of this
sometimes obviously absurd play we are all in.
all he did was laugh for a year and a
day.
i can hear him laughing still, long and
varied, musical; the laugh of a child
at play, the laugh of unrequited love,
just before tears flow--
demonic laughter of some deranged soul
caught in a hideous dream trying
desperately to waken from it; soft laughter,
long guffaws, chortles, snickers;
he ended in an amused giggle that told me he had
learned something, that i already knew--
i wasn’t going to get to speak faced to face with
the director of this play until the last line of
the last act, until the last curtain fell,
until the din of the final standing ovation
was silent and all the theatre patrons
were gone from the hall and i was trundling
down silent vomitorium to my dressing room
where finally the door to the cell of time was open,
where the turnkey sat sipping his favourite poison,
from a silver cup engraved with the logo of time.
vcp, 1990[/FONT]
while waiting in the prison of time
for the turnkey to unlock my cell--
studying walls of the cage i’m in,
glittering alleys stretch before my
tainted vision, and with jaded eyes
i witness the life of the world.
gone now, innocence of youth,
and what follows innocence but
more of the same in
different costume?
you just can’t take a part from the whole
and expect what is left to stand without it.
you may shuffle the parts,
the turnkey
just said so through the bars while he looked
at his watch and shook his head
which meant that i would do another
day in the hands of time.
i foolishly asked him once if i would
know when my sentence was come to its end,
he looked at me with the queerest askance i
had ever seen and never seen since,
with a laugh that was nearly a smirk
of kindness, i realized he had no idea whatever.
i asked him for a weekend pass or if i could
have a word with the script writer of this
sometimes obviously absurd play we are all in.
all he did was laugh for a year and a
day.
i can hear him laughing still, long and
varied, musical; the laugh of a child
at play, the laugh of unrequited love,
just before tears flow--
demonic laughter of some deranged soul
caught in a hideous dream trying
desperately to waken from it; soft laughter,
long guffaws, chortles, snickers;
he ended in an amused giggle that told me he had
learned something, that i already knew--
i wasn’t going to get to speak faced to face with
the director of this play until the last line of
the last act, until the last curtain fell,
until the din of the final standing ovation
was silent and all the theatre patrons
were gone from the hall and i was trundling
down silent vomitorium to my dressing room
where finally the door to the cell of time was open,
where the turnkey sat sipping his favourite poison,
from a silver cup engraved with the logo of time.
vcp, 1990[/FONT]