Exeunt. The sun sinks behind clouds.
DJ: We’re going to hear something perfectly
Awful, I just know. JM: That man
Is doomed? Not our first brush with that idea.
DJ: I guess not. But the first time it
Will have been uttered by the horse’s mouth.
MAMAN IMPLORES U, USE YOUR MOTHER WIT
*
OK, start ’em rolling! OUR THINK TANKS
JM: To battle? OR TO PLEAD MY BOY
THE CAUSE OF MAN? BUT IF THESE GODS OF OURS
ARE THE ASEXUAL IMAGINED POWERS
WE HAVE PERSONIFIED…then pleading will
Get us nowhere. THREE I FEEL ARE WELL
DISPOSED, BUT G IS OUT TO DO HIS JOB
Can he be made to feel that we’re worth saving?
CAN HE BE MADE TO FEEL? His feelings went
Up in flame, in the great Punishment
After Atlantis? YET HIS VOICE IS ODDLY
THE MOST MELODIOUS Why won’t he sing?
ONCE HE BEGAN HE MIGHT REVEAL SOMETHING
Dire enough to leave us witless? QUITE
Thus making it impossible to write
This poem they all want. MUCH CHOC LAST NIGHT
You are disturbed. ENFANTS ITS U KNOW STRANGE:
WE’VE NOTHING OF LIFE TO LOSE & STILL ARE FIERCELY,
WYSTAN & I, ON ITS SIDE AND 3 OF THEM
TO ALL INTENTS LIGHT YEARS AWAY FROM MAN
SEEM CURIOUSLY NO LESS PARTISAN
Yes, because they’re “affirming”. Just you wait
And see how, when the time comes, they negate!
EUREKA IS THIS NOT YR FORM MY BOY? VOL III:
2 GOLDEN TRAYS OF ‘YES’ & ‘NO’ WITH ‘&’
AS BRIDGE OR BALANCE? Talk about a grand
Design! Why didn’t that occur to me?
ENFANT FISHING FOR COMPLIMENTS? Not at all.
An empty glittering’s our only haul
Without Wystan and you to drive the school
Into these nets. Alone, I’m such a fool!
YES PARSIFAL, IN ONE SENSE I AGREE
U’VE ON YR SIDE UTTER NEUTRALITY,
NO MADE TO ORDER PREJUDICES NO
BACKTALK JUST THE LISTENER’S PURE 0!
NULL ZERO CRYING OUT TO BE FILLED IN:
FOR ALL TOO SOON CONFRERE U MUST BEGIN
TO JUDGE TO WEIGH WHAT’S CAST INTO THE SCALES
Me weigh their words? THEY COME THE BELLS THE BELLS!
The First Lessons: 3
Thunderclaps. Bells boom. The Brothers enter.
Mich.
HUSH EMMANUEL, HUSH! WE ASSEMBLE BEYOND TUMULT, CLEARING OUR MINDS OF CLOUDY SENTIMENT. HUSH!
STILL SO SHY, BROTHER? NOT YET READY?
Silence. A red reflex shrugs and fades.
AH THEN, OUR SENIOR POET, SPEAK!
WHA.
SIRS, LORDS, LOVES, LET ME FIRST FALL ON MY KNEES.
O SPARE, SPARE OUR WORLD! IMPERFECT, WASTEFUL,
CRUEL THOUGH IT BE, YET THINK ON THE GOOD IN IT:
THERE HAVE BEEN POETS WHOLLY GIVEN OVER,
YES, TO CELEBRATING YOU, LORD LIGHT
AND YOU LORD EARTH, AND YOU O THUNDERER.
AND THERE ARE SINGERS, THERE ARE GENERATIONS
BEHIND US, EXTOLLING IT ALL. TRUE, WE HAVE STRAYED
FAR FROM SOME DIMLY CHARTED ROAD BUT, LORDS,
WAS IT NOT FROM WONDER AT YOUR WORKS
CATCHING OUR SORRY HUMAN FANCY THAT
WE MISSED THE TURNING? SPARE US, I PRAY, WHO MAY NEVER
HAVE ANOTHER GLORIOUS CHANCE TO FAIL.
(Wonderful Wystan! That should tip the scale.)
Mich.
SPEAK, MADAME.
MM.
SLAYER, I ADDRESS YOU.
I KNOW YOUR WAYS. I VANISHED IN THAT BLACK.
PRAY HEAR ME NOW. YOU ANSWERED ONCE WHEN I ASKED
HOW MUCH MORE? BY SAYING AS YOU DO
TO EVERY MAN AND WOMAN: YOU COME, YOU.
AND WE ALL DO YOUR BIDDING, GABRIEL,
EACH AT HIS TIME. FOR INNOCENCE IS OUR NATURE
AND WE INNOCENTLY THINK IT FOR THE BEST.
WE COME MUCH AS FLOWERS CUT FROM THE STEM BELIEVE
IN THE BLOOM TO FOLLOW. AH YES, THAT IS WHY
SO TRUSTINGLY, O DARK LORD, WE MAKE ROOM.
NOW I LOOK YOU ONCE AGAIN IN THE EYE:
HOW MUCH MORE? HOW MUCH?
Mich.
SHY BROTHER, NOW?
Now only does a face from the red gloom
Flicker. Eyes opaque as minium,
A death mask set in a flat smile. The voice
Most frightful for its dulcet mournfulness.
Gabr.
CHILDREN, I WHO SIT ON A BLACK THRONE AT MY FATHER’S RIGHT, I BEHIND EACH ATOM A SHADOW ATOM, CHILDREN,
CONVINCE ME THAT YOUR RACE IS NOT YET RUN.
(Sforzando) BROTHERS HOLD YR TONGUES! LET THEM!
WHA.
LORD, WHEN MY SISTER SPOKE, DID IT NOT MOVE YOU?
LORD, O LET REASON SPEAK. IS NOT DESTRUCTION,
MUCH OF IT, FOR MAN’S GOOD? LORD GABRIEL,
WE SEE YOUR KINDLY SIDE. WE KNOW YOU OFTEN
HAVE OUR INTEREST AT HEART: SNUFFING OUT PAIN,
WEEDING…THESE ARE WHITE ACTS. SURELY, LORD,
OUR GOD TURNS: ‘WELL DONE, GABRIEL’ SURELY?
Gabr.
MADAME?
REPROACHFUL STILL OF YOUR OLD UNCLE WHO BROUGHT YOU SUPPER?
DJ.
Supper?
JM.
Her radiation therapy.
MM.
AH AH LORD, THAT MEAL…I, YES, WAS GIVEN
TIME BETWEEN COURSES. AND FOR THAT I THANK YOU.
YET IS TIME SUCH A GIFT UNLESS WITH IT COME,
O, WISDOM, THINGS TO BUILD ON? TIME, MY LORD,
MERELY THE AFTERNOON BETWEEN TWO MEALS?
NO, WE MUST HAVE ETERNITY, SO WELL
HAS YOUR FATHER MADE OUR WORLD, LORD GABRIEL!
Mich.
THAT STRUCK HOME!
Gabr.
POET, MADAME, MORTALS, SLY BROTHER MICHAEL, FICKLE TWINS, LISTEN: OUR FATHER SAYS THERE IS GENIUS!
& HE KNOWING, AH! CREATING ALL THERE IS TO KNOW, CREATED ME AS WELL.
AND WHERE IS MY NATURE BUT IN HIS FIST?
LISTEN: OUT OF THE PANTHEON OF GALAXIES FROM WHICH OUR FATHER COMES, I HAVE HEARD HIS VOICE:
‘GABRIEL, MY DARKER SIDE, THERE ARE GALAXIES, GODS AS POWERFUL AS I. SON GABRIEL, WE ARE WARND. WE ARE HARD PREST.’
YES MADAME, ONE LIFE LOST BADLY MAKES ME GRIEVE. YES POET, EACH GRAND SONG GLADDENS ME.
THERE AM I NOT ALMOST, ALMOST HUMAN?
MORE SO, & YOUR WORLD WOULD LONG AGO HAVE VANISHT!
I, OH I HAVE KNOWN FEELINGS! ALL BLACK! RAGES AT IGNORANCE! DESPAIR AT THE FEELINGS THEMSELVES!
YES, HAD A LIGHT HUMAN HEART BEEN MINE, I WOULD HAVE TURND TO MY LEFT AND SAID: HOW MUCH MORE, LORD, HOW MUCH?
I WAS BENIGNLY SPARED THE BLINDING WHITE LIGHT SLY MICHAEL BATHES YOU IN.
FOR, BURDEND WITH IDEAS, MICHAEL, YOU HEAP ON MAN PRIDE, AMBITION, A SENSE OF SENSE IN ALL HIS SENSELESSNESS. YOU CHUCK HIM UNDER THE CHIN WHO SHOULD SLAP HIS CHEEK.
AH CHILDREN, CONVINCE ME, CONVINCE!
POET, WHO NOW IS ON HIS KNEES?
Mich.
YES, HE WEEPS, HE WEEPS! HAVE WE REACHED AROUND THE THRONE?
HAVE WE? DOES ITS BLACK TURN GRAY?
SHY BROTHER, LET THEM OFF! IF ONLY FOR TODAY.
Exeunt
.
*
5 o’clock. The terrace all ablaze—
Shrub and succulent and rivulet
Drying on flagstones. Hose coiled, a cassette
Of Offenbach arias plays
“Ah quel dîner je viens de faire!”
La Périchole lurching in her cups from table
Deliciously outwits the estimable
Viceroy who thinks to get his hands on her.
Downstairs: ENFANTS HAVE WE NOT ALL COME REELING
AWAY, SEMISEDUCED? By Gabriel?
YR MAMAN HALF IN LOVE WITH EASEFUL…Yes!
After last summer’s dry spells, how much feeling
Is in the air! Such limpid bel
Canto phrases—raptures of distress!
MY BOY DON’T QUOTE THIS OLD STICKLER FOR FORM.
WHERE IN ALL THIS IS THE AFFIRMATION?
In the surrender, in the forward motion—
POWER BLAZING ON SHUT LIDS? MIND LAPPED IN WARM
PRIMORDIAL WATERS? Yes, yes! NO NO THIS
INGENUE’S TRUST IN FEELING: NEVER TO THINK?
CHECK UP? ASK QUESTIONS? ONWARD TO THE BRINK,
ANCHOR CUT LOOSE? THAT WAY LIES NEMESIS
But Gabriel was kneeling, he was weeping!
YES, AS THE UNIVERSE’S GREATEST ACTOR
He’s playing with us? TRY FOR SOME EXACTER
SENSE OF WHAT IT IS, THIS CURRENT SWEEPING
THRU US (FOR WE TOO FEEL SAPPED) BEWARE
LEST FEELING’S THRONE PROVE AN ELECTRIC CHAIR
Don’t. Give us time to get beyond
—We whom at each turn sheer walls of text
Sweep from one staggering vista to the next—
That listener’s Oh. Discriminate, respond,
Use our heads? What part? Not the reptilian
Inmost brain—seat of an unblinking
Coil of hieratic coldness to mere “thinking”.
Yet it branched off, says fable, a quarter billion
Years ago. A small, tree-loving snake’s
Olfactory lobes developed. Limbs occurred
To it, and mammal warmth, music and word
And horror of its old smelled-out mistakes
—Whose scent still fills the universal air?
PLUG AWAY ENFANT YOU’RE GETTING THERE
The First Lessons: 4
Bells. The Brothers enter. Reddening light.
Mich.
PROCEED, GABRIEL.
WE YOUR JUNIOR BROTHERS, YOUR RECENT SHADES, YOUR (FOR THIS BRIEF CLASH OF LIGHTS) TWO CAPTIVE &, WE NOTE, CAPTIVATED MORTALS ATTEND YOU.
SPARING US ONLY THAT ULTIMATE FLASH, REVEAL YOUR ROLE IN THIS LONG DREAM CALLED MANKIND.
Gabr.
THE SUICIDE AND I ARE ALIKE, BROTHERS.
WE EXIST IN THAT MORTAL MOMENT, IN A WELTER OF CHAOTIC FEELING. LET US BEGIN THERE:
(Agitato) CELLS IMPLODE! THE MIND EXPECTING BLISS & PEACE IS IN A TURMOIL AND
(Tempo primo) AT THAT MOMENT I COME FOR THIS POOR HUMAN.
NO MATTER HOW INTELLIGENT, HOWEVER UNPREPARED, AT THAT MOMENT WE CLASP HANDS, THE SUICIDE & I,
& DO YOU KNOW I LOOK STRAIGHT INTO INNOCENCE, MICHAEL, STRIPT OF IDEA AS MORALITY IS SHED.
AT THAT MOMENT, IN THE RED DEBRIS OF RUIND CELLS, I KNOW INNOCENCE.
STARTING, POET, YOU WILL PROTEST, WITH SUICIDE, WHEN WE BEGAN WITH MICHAEL’S GRAND & SIMPLE THEME? YES
FOR THE SUICIDE HAS ACCEPTED ME, & FROM THAT FRIENDSHIP I CATCH MY GLIMPSE OF MAN.
A MURDER, A NATURAL DEATH, A MASS OF SOULS OBLITERATED IN MY DEADLY MUSHROOM, FROM THESE I LEARN NOTHING.
THESE DEAD CAUGHT UNAWARES & RESISTING TELL ME ONLY THE OLD IMPERILLD STORY.
WITTY ONE & YOU HIS SLIPPERY TWIN, & YOU SLY MICHAEL HAVE TOLD OF CAVES, HUTS, LIGHT-SHEDDING IDEAS. BUT I HAVE SEEN
MORE EVEN THAN ANY MOTHER GAZING INTO THE EYES OF A BABE CONCENTRATED UPON A MILKY IDEA:
I HAVE SEEN THE BLANKEST, MOST UTTER INNOCENCE
The light has cleared to a pure rosy glow.
IN THOSE WHO TURND THEIR BACKS ON LIFE, AND FOUND ME IN ITS SHADOW.
WHA.
SIR, LORD, I ONCE TOOK UP THE SUICIDE’S CAUSE.
Gabr.
YES, POET?
WHA.
NOT AS ONE, BUT SOMEHOW UNDERSTANDING
THAT IT, LIKE ALL FAILED CAUSES, WAS MAY I SAY
TOUCHING? YET, LORD GABRIEL, YOU WILL NOT
UNFIX THIS IDEA ROOTED IN OUR KIND:
BELIEF IN LIFE IS PUREST INNOCENCE.
Gabr.
MADAME?
MM.
I STRUGGLE TO AGREE, AND IF I CANNOT
MEET YOUR EYE, LORD, YOU ALONE KNOW WHY.
IF AT THAT LAST MOMENT I WAS UTTERLY
INNOCENT, WAS I NOT DRIVEN TO IT BY
THE DARK IDEA YOU HAD INSTILLED IN ME?
(Our shocked eyes meet—Maria took her life?)
Gabr.
MADAME, YOU CALLED ME & I CAME. IN THAT MOMENT WE WERE ONE. NOW YOU ALSO ARE AGAINST ME?
Mich.
AH GABRIEL, NONE HERE IS AGAINST ANOTHER.
Gabr.
A NOVEL IDEA, SLY BROTHER! BUT TOO ENLIGHTEND FOR ME.
Emm.
BROTHER GABRIEL?
Gabr.
YES, LIMPID TWIN?
Emm.
WHEN I SMOTHERED THAT FIRST GREAT REVOLVING MASS OF YOUR EXPLODING SLAVES, AND YOU & I STOOD SMILING IN THE STEAM
BEFORE OUR FATHER CALLED FORTH MICHAEL HIS (LET US ACKNOWLEDGE IT) FAVORITE SON,
DID WE NOT, GABRIEL, MAKE A PACT?
Gabr.
Flickering ominously. AND? IS IT NOT A POET’S PHRASE: ET TU?
Emm.
NO NO GABRIEL! THESE TWO MORTALS, AS I WAS CARRIED TO NOURISH PLANTS IN THEIR VERY HOUSE,
THESE TWO WERE ABOUT TO RESOLVE TO GIVE IN TO US!
JM.
Oh, when we spoke of drifting with the current—
Emm.
PRECISELY, YOUNG SCRIBE, AND TICKLED MY NATURE THUS.
BUT GABRIEL? WERE YOU EVER MEANT TO BE, IN OUR FATHER’S GREAT DESIGN, VENGEFUL?
WERE WE NOT, YOU & I, IN THE STEAM OF THE COOLING WORLD, AGREED?
Gabr.
IN THAT FIRST FLUSH OF INNOCENCE, EMMANUEL, YES, AGREED:
WE WOULD SHARE THE WORK OF WIPING OUT OUR FATHER’S LET US NOT SAY ERRORS BUT EXPERIMENTS.
YES, ELIAS, I REMEMBER EVEN MY OWN INNOCENCE BEFORE THE GRIND OF WORK MADE OF ME THIS MULE YOU REASON WITH.
Emm.
THEN, BROTHER, WE MET AGAIN IN THE HISS OF THE FLOODED VOLCANO
A scene glassed-over on the inmost wall
Trembles, flashes, clears. Viewed from mid-sky,
Thera erupts, its gleaming masonry
Silently topples into waves a black
Inverted pyramid of smoke pours from.
AND YOU HAD CHANGED, SHY ONE, & YOU SAID: SHALL WE NOT DROWN EVEN THEM?
& IN A VOICE OF THUNDER OUR GREAT FATHER CRIED TO YOU AS TO A HOUND:
GABRIEL, TO HEEL!
Gabr.
An ashen pallor. YES, EMMANUEL, YES.
NOW BROTHER LIGHT, IS IT NOT TIME TO TAKE OUR PUPILS TO THE LABORATORY & THERE, FITTINGLY AT 5,
EXAMINE THE FIVE?
Mich.
TOO FITTING, GABRIEL, TOO LIKE A RIGID NATURE’S NEED
FOR FORMULA & SYMMETRY. YET AGREED:
COME TOMORROW & WE WILL LET HAVE THEIR SAY
THE IMMORTAL FIVE FOREVER SAVED ON THE RAINY DAY!
Exeunt.
&n
bsp; Apologetically
Blowing his nose, DJ: It’s what I’ve tried
Never to think—Maria’s suicide—
What I can’t imagine anyone…
Sometimes, alone with her at Sounion
Or driving back to town along the sea,
Death would come up, the pain, the indignity.
Once she half joked about a lethal dose
Of something from her London days—who knows?
Just in case, she said. I tried to tell her
She had no right to…JM: Mirabell
Spoke of the usefulness— DJ: I know,
I hated that. Loss is loss. JM: Though
Hasn’t the Board helped us at all to see
Losses recouped? In Wystan and Maria’s
Surrender to the minerals and the plants
Those ghastly graveyard facts become a dance
Of slow acceptance; our own otherwise
Dumb grief is given words. DJ: Or lies?
Last month I went with Tony to her grave
—There near Mother and Dad’s grave, where I don’t go.
We spent the afternoon weeding and thinning,
Washing the cross, putting in myrtle, white
Impatiens, a sprinkling of peat moss.
It looked so really nice when we were through.
And now…JM: And now, you mean, beneath it
Somebody’s lying whom we never knew?
As if we hadn’t known her capable
Of anything! DJ: That’s it. Ah hell,
Let’s sleep on it.
*
MAMAN REMAINS OF 2
MINDS ABOUT HER END ONE MORE YES/NO
FOR POOR JM: TO WILL DEATH MAY HAVE BEEN
MORE POTENT THAN 5 CC OF MORPHINE…
MEANWHILE DJ: DEAR ENFANT LEAVE MY PLOT
TO THICKEN NICELY BY ITSELF. ALIVE
& WELL (& IN FULL FIG TO MEET THE FIVE)
I’M HERE WITH U, NO? ALL THE REST IS ROT
The First Lessons: 5
The schoolroom stretches to a line. It breaks
Cleverly into two floating poles
Of color that in dark ‘air’ glow and pulse,
Undulate and intertwine like snakes.
Whatever road we travel now, this twinned
Emblem lights, and is both distant guide
The Changing Light at Sandover Page 34