wandering troupe the players diverse

squeeze into yonder carriage transporting them off

the midgets in their tiny sighs

the giant against the mightiest oak

the lovely ladies of the stages with their graces and cares

the gentlemen of perpetual blues down in the purple seats

in the countryside inn we begin to play ourselves as dinner begins

the clowns who also sing like larks played by a choir of beautiful boys

the darkened voices of the angels murmur then in wonder at some men

the grecian 500 BC play as if fresh from yesterday

before the common era a glory they say more corporeal than today

the chorus tells of the most flimsy wondrous things

like glints of gold in seawater on a fading summer afternoon

the tragedians who stalk the wings dressed in yore costume

the cloak the spur the mace the hound the black swayed boots

lord anybody singing through the forlorn shell of evenings now gone

and thats every evening that there ever was they croon as if from a distant pontoon

and some dying party you once attended down the coast and across the lagoon

dreamer you said come with me there is something that i want you to see and soon

but as the gang fly away we leave it all behind for another day

now everytime i hit the turps and times i find it dilutes my colours grey

lost in a terrible forest during a great storm

a lightning strike which fell down the spine

aligned within the well of stars mars full of black water smiles

a spooky reversal divested of our scripts and songs the floor belongs to no one

hammer oh rain on our heads absolving us of everything

in thund’rous applause the appalling squall descended an unending shriek

in stark gothic limelight the moaning trees creak into the rushing river

the swollen falling water creaming the banks and the flanks of  weeping willows

the devil appears in the shape of white hot heat anxiety nightly between the pillows

surely this is the end of our run

the critics who jeered when learning of our disappearance will hear

the tempest in their headphones implanted in bone

the next day however we awoke to the cheerful chirping of strange birds

absurdly a lovely child has found us

and they come and lead us to their town their somewhere elses realm

so in marvellous old theatres with mirrors and velvet

the tragic story of icarus and his daddy daedalus

oh i do hate to fall down, down even in a dream

the voices all singing incessantly

like a fragment of the great work

a cathedral of sound drowned in echo rebound

your earthquake cold stare at the audience in confidence

we all sing in solemn candlelight throwing shadow the anthem

taking a bow retiring to my quarters

sipping a refreshing cordial setting aside my lyre

and regarding the bouquet from an admirer

among my papers a summons for the players before the monster child king

as the ruling hand among the lands of those who dont or cannot understand

we must obey him

the arduous task to perform the masque he has asked us to do

made up as poseidon astride an elephantine seal

i must deal with zeus deucedly hard in the delicate cadences of zeal

in my card boarded castle just off centre stage

nervously holding the words in my rightly slightly shaky hands

beyond the outside cage of the age

we act out the manifest unrest of a universe from a page