Declamatory, Cathartic

This is the playwright Devoe,
an archetypal creative person,
sitting on his sunlit deck,

deep in a reverie,
his life at stake, perhaps,
in which his phone seems to ring.

The caller, a production person
at the theater where a Devoe play is showing,
sounds extremely agitated,

saying we have an emergency,
the house is upset,
the performance cannot continue.

This is a member of the audience
who has risen from his seat in a frenzy
just before the end of the first act,

shouting it is my life they are telling up there,
no, no, not without me knowing
what they mean to say, to do, no, no.

These are eleven persons rising in anger
and these are three in empathy with him,
humanitarian, juristic, cathartic.

This is Devoe, now, startled out of his reverie
by the insistent ringing of his phone,
ruthless, declamatory, ego-ridden.

copyright 2007 Oliver Rice
bio
Barnwood magazine
Contents 07