CONFESSION ZERO (The Weaver's Song)

I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, "Mother, what was war?"
~Eve Merriam

(Two mothers stand center as lights rise on the bare stage.)

Open the play [+/-]

Four Arab men speak of the bombs nuisance...

As lights rise on the stage we see four old and judicious Arab men, Ahmad, (most praiseworthy), Anis, (love and friendship), As’ad, (happiness), and Almahdi, (guided to the right path), standing near a deli in downtown Baghdad, conversing …Periodically a distant explosion will cause them to hold their words or repeat them. The explosions do not alarm them; instead they are a part of their daily lives in Iraq; their routine. The men, numb to the bombs frequent occurrence, are only a quick and sorrowful nuisance.

Open the play [+/-]

Scores dead in Mumbai train bombs
More than 160 people have been killed and 460 injured by seven bombs on the train network in the Indian financial capital Mumbai (Bombay), police say.

Across the street from the Mumbai Western Railway, the station was scattered with fractured love, with shredded hope of cleaved flowers, dead mice, angry servants; things we could kill with our own bombs or hands or fear, given time.

Children waiting, mothers, fathers- transient- passing- gone. Waiting. Hungry; hungry for work or worship… whichever came first, but not death blasting its marked solitude of splintered joy in moist fragrance, pierced skin the color of kings wrapped in flags.

(VOICEOVER, an eight-thousand year old woman, enters center stage. NARRATOR and SIDEKICK, an average sized pair of fools, come bumbling along after.)

VOICEOVER: Man, His Sheep and Humanity are bathing in the blood of the shuddering people. Man’s kinship is breathing near the heart of truth, it is panting, eager and trembling near the stone  that weighs down love.  Quell their rage, said the wind.  Ready them for an infuriated ocean, said the rain.  Steady quaking limbs ahead of death, said the forest.  Pray with our loftiness for man’s love, said the stars.  Our instruction’s come too late, said the dust.

NARRATOR: I'm not so sure about all of that, but I am the narrator of the play you’re witnessing unfold  before you. Try not to confuse me with voiceover. Voiceover is purely a directional component to keep the action flowing, nothing more and nothing less.

VOICEOVER: Narrator is the curmudgeonly type; never satisfied, always ill-tempered and full of himself…

NARRATOR: What?

VOICEOVER: That’s what they say.

NARRATOR: They?

VOICEOVER: The dull, yet throbbing “they” whom tempt our scorn and bring our hands to stain love and joy and thankfulness and kinship.

SIDEKICK: And tarnish our wits!

NARRATOR: Being funny's important too! If laughter ends, we'll no longer have the capacity to be- ummm-

SIDEKICK: -funny! If laughter ends we'll no longer be funny!

NARRATOR: To be or-

SIDEKICK: -not to be funny. That is the question.

NARRATOR:  The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune-

SIDEKICK: Hamlet's an honest ghost!

NARRATOR: A true-penny!

SIDEKICK:  For who would bear the whips and scorns of time-

NARRATOR:  The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely-

SIDEKICK: -Contumely? What a word!

VOICEOVER: Narrator and Sidekick continue their dull insanity as the homeless carry on their song, their plea; an enthusiastic prayer for truth, that they might glean affection in the midst of gloom, that they might understand their misgivings  and learn to smile upon all people.

NARRATOR: Or deny truth.

SIDEKICK: Blah blah, deniability, blah…

NARRATOR: One. Single. Solitary. Seed.

SIDEKICK: Another of the creator’s greatest sleight’s of hand!

NARRATOR: Yea, though I walk through the valley-

SIDEKICK: -of the voiceover of death-

NARRATOR: -I will fear no trickery.

NARRATOR: Like I’ve done so many, many-

SIDEKICK: -times before.

VOICEOVER: The idea is to have humankind lose everything in order to end his foolishness.

SIDEKICK: If our work may be made simple.

NARRATOR: Splendid!

SIDEKICK: If it may not-

NARRATOR: Splendid!

VOICE-OVER: Narrator and sidekick are a very distinctive type of clown; personalities like that of entertainers... wits, that of a stooge.

NARRATOR: You’re mean, voice-over. Just downright mean.

SIDEKICK: Larry, Curly, Moe and Shemp. The Four Stooges.

VOICEOVER: Sidekick says with his usual lack of curiosity.

NARRATOR: No! You're not mean, voice-over, you're cruel!

VOICEOVER: The Homeless now begin to play their respective instruments at a slightly faster pace. Still, it’s a rather gloomy song.  Lights rise to full on HUMANITY, a fetid, disease ridden ogre, whose razor-sharp talons fold out of its massive hands as it lurks in the shadows of nightfall...

NARRATOR: Contumely? What a word!

VOICEOVER: Soon, MAN, an unkempt shepherd carrying a large and golden staff in his hands, enters with his herd of sheep. He sniffs the air and scratches his chest and legs as he looks around for the source of the rancid odor which, by now, has crawled deep inside of his senses.  When MAN is rather sure that it is neither he nor his flock that reek of foulness, he makes his way around the space, checking in and under the many large, and occupied, boxes- Homeless dwellings that litter the space. During his search, as he looks inside and under the boxes, we see a tattered assortment of human unpleasantness within and the occupants reacting in varying states of shock and resentment. After a good moment of this, and sensing he’s being watched by something, man speaks.

MAN: Who goes there? Ogre, is it you that crawls inside my nose like a hairy scoundrel? I can smell your sorry carcass. I know you’re nearer than my senses desire. I should warn you that I'm armed. Come out and I’ll smite thee with my golden staff. I’ll not ask so kindly the next time. (Silence) Silence is all you can muster? A pox on your stubbornness! I can smell you and your eaux de parfum of death; you should really try a different fragrance; this one gives you away like the gray breath of a chain smoker. I should split you in half with what I like to call my ogre equalizer- my Colt .45 automatic. I’ll blast you from this sinkhole all the way to kingdom come and back, retrieve your sorry carcass, skin you from neckline to genitalia, hang your sorry existence from the tallest billboard on the busiest freeway so everyone could see just how pathetic you’ve really become and take great pleasure in your final breath! (Silence.) Say something, damn you! Come out from the shadows and face me like an ogre so I can give you a well deserved thrashing you miserable bastard! You may be deaf, but you can still see. Some say you're blind. That you're as sightless as liberty-

NARRATOR: There's nothing in here about the ogre being blind...?

SIDEKICK: I know! He must be thinking of a Cyclops.

NARRATOR: Good one, Shemp!

VOICE-OVER: Would you two idiots shut-up!

NARRATOR/SIDKICK: Hey? That wasn't nice, Voiceover!

VOICE-OVER: A lightening bolt crashes down on Narrator and Sidekick killing them both.

SIDEKICK: Wha? Can he do that, change the script in mid-stream?

NARRATOR: Of course he can't! He's bluffing! But I'd move to the left just in case.

VOICEOVER: I'll kill you both myself if you don't shut-up! (Silence.)

MAN: I say you can see like a hawk, Ogre. Your blindness is a con. Open your god-fouled peepers and look around you, Ogre! What do you see; a shepherd and his flock, maybe some homeless riffraff? I bathe daily, sometimes three or four times, and my sheep, though fusty, certainly smell as they should. I'm waiting on you, Ogre. If you don’t show yourself, what good are you to me but an unseen and malodorous malcontent? Don’t you see that the longer you wait on me will only result in darkening death’s damnable doorway? (MAN swings his staff about in a defensive manner as if he were under attack by some unseen force.) A famous leper once said-

VOICEOVER: “Without failure there is no sweetness in success because there's no understanding of it.”

MAN: You don’t even understand your own collapse since failure comes before success and sweetness. You think because of your title, your identity, that you’re free to do as you please? You don't give two pinches of salt for me. Why on earth you pretend to care that I’m dying is beyond me? You couldn't care two inadequate pinches you pernicious pig! Finish it! For Pete’s sake, end your game of hide and seek, I’m sick and tired of your inability to see yourself for what you’ve become; a sightless and shrieking banshee! And, to top it all off, you smell like manure!

VOICEOVER: The wind begins to blow hard and the sound of wailing can be heard coming from the boxes. Man begins to cower slightly as Humanity moves out into the light and the wailing becomes unbearable.

MAN: Stay back, Ogre! I may not look like much, but I'll break your legs with my staff and feed you to the hungry! ...Oh hell! Go ahead! Finish what you started, it's not as if it was unexpected. I knew that someday you'd come for me. Just be gentle when you crush me. I have a spastic colon, I’m lactose intolerant and I've something along the lines of a bi-polar disorder. Ever since I was a little kid I’ve never been able to listen to people for very long. Not that I don’t like people, it’s just that they’re ugly. Sorry. I know “ugly” isn’t politically correct, but, then again, why should I even care at this juncture. Besides that, you probably don’t understand the word “ugly” since you’re a frighteningly hideous beast yourself. You are an “ugly to the bone” sort of ugly, aren't you? I mean look at you? Hell! Your face might even be pleasant if you’d see a plastic surgeon. They can do wonders these days. I saw a picture of a soldier that came back from one of our many wars and his face was blasted and burned all the way past and through to his eye sockets. If he walked down a sidewalk everyone would pretend they had to cross the street to avoid looking into his bloody eyes and disfigured face. They'd go miles out of their way to keep from having to stare. He looked like- Well, to be honest with you, Ogre, he looked a lot like...

VOICEOVER: Man briefly considers this.

HUMANITY: Me? His face looked like my face?

(The wind and sheer force behind Humanity’s voice knocks Man off of his feet. The ogre’s powerful voice bellows throughout the theater. The homeless boxes remain unaffected by this.)

MAN: Holy crap! Try giving Man some warning before you speak next time. Okay? You’re a lot like my wife. She’s quiet for hours and then, boom! she rattles the foundation. But, unlike you, she’s gentle; her words come from goodness and they mean something. That's the kind of rattling I’m talking about here.

HUMANITY: (Replying as softly as he is able.) Your wife looks like me?

MAN: Oh! God no! People don't see her and scream, running headlong into street lamps... They just stare at her as their lips twirl upward. It can get annoying, but it never gets worrisome, like seeing you poke your head out from behind a tree.

HUMANITY: She sounds divine. I’ve never had a wife. No woman, or man for that matter, will have me. I mean who in their right mind would want to wake up to this as their humanity?

MAN: Don’t get too chummy there, Ogre… I’ve got to get back to my wife and to my duties as her husband. I enjoyed our brief intermission from reality here, but, to be honest with you again, Ogre, you’re sob story about being abused and it’s all the fault of Man, is getting on my last nerve! Buck up and take some responsibility! All of your heartache bull-hogwash is boring me to tears!

(HUMANITY laughs. It is all laughter in one huge vacuum that literally knocks man off of his feet again.)

MAN: Whoah. Take it easy, big fella. Please don’t hurt me, okay?

HUMANITY: I cannot hurt you. It is you that will do harm to me. I am Humanity.

MAN: Well don't hurt me you big oaf. I’m part of you, I’m right in the middle of you. huMANity, HU-MAN-ITY. -What the-? Why didn’t-? How did-? Where did these boxes come from, another planet?

HUMANITY: No. They’re with me.

MAN: These bums are with you?

HUMANITY: They’re not bums. I’d prefer if you thought of them as my entourage. Where humanity travels, so goeth the derelict.

MAN: What does your “entourage” say about all of this?

HUMANITY: They don't talk much. Fine enough people, just a bit on the quiet side, but, unbeknownst to even them, there's great knowledge held within their silence.

MAN: Really?

HUMANITY: Yes. I’ve never had a close friend, unless you count the creatures that roam the earth, the waters and the skies, but they’re too busy cleaning the gunk of me off of their fur, or hair, or scales, or skin.

MAN: That’s life, ogre, nothing but heartache and mayhem. It’s always been that way, you know?

HUMANITY: NO! It has not always been!

MAN: Okay. Okay. But it’s been this way for many a millennia; methinks there’s no turning back now. I mean that is why you’re here, right, to end this, our charade of ownership? I'd say that what should have been our finest hour has become our final hour. Our reason d'être has become our unreasonable existence, if you ask me. So how does one go about assessing blame for such a monstrous failure? Is it, I, Man? Is it you, Humanity? Is it God? Is it-

HUMANITY: (Slamming his fist through the ground -everything around shakes for some time.) SILENCE! SILENCE, MAN! Can’t you see that I’m dying right along with you? I’m not God. I’m Humanity. And you’re just Man. It is the noise that taxis death, and I’m the carrier of man, and death, so it; this god-awful noise, must be my noise as well. Our noise is driving us away from the creator, carrying us into the searing heat. When this all began we were filled with a goodness that permeated through all of creation, there was no noise, there was only the sounds of peacefulness. The original sounds were beautiful, natural sounds; streams, rivers, oceans, wind and rain, with the occasional quaking of the ground. But now, now there’s so much noise, so much suffering and murder and torture and destruction that it’s causing the original sounds to erupt too frequently. This cannot stand, we will suffer for having imagined it could last or that we have the power to stave it off.

MAN: I think it's-

HUMANITY: You think? You think? And what of your thoughts? They do nothing but bend everything around and over that which we should not be concerned with. God hasn’t shown up, because God doesn’t “show up”. He doesn’t do meet and greets. God will never be seen by you or I, maybe if we weren't such hypocrites, loved more and hated less, cured all and murdered none, we could, possibly, someday, maybe join the universe, the one seed, but alas, we no longer honor our kinship. We haven’t the faintest inkling what our pale pretense is doing to the world. Man and I are dying. Man's been bartering his goodness at the gates of want for tens of thousands of years, unfortunately for you and I, and my entourage and your wife and your sheep and the planet, we are set to pay an exceedingly heavy price for our hubris.

MAN: Can I just say something here?

HUMANITY: NO YOU MAY NOT! …You, Man, have evolved into a fool, a nervous ninny, if you will, a superstitious child, a sightless shepherd. You’ve thought with a terrible noise. You’ve colluded with the things that were never meant to be any of your business! We were meant to be in awe of creation, not control it, or label it, or abuse its truth. Anything man has touched in his attempt to put a name or a face on the creator has been and will be and is… a worthless lie.

MAN: But-

HUMANITY: But nothing! All of it’s a worthless lie! ...Oh! Would you drop that silly staff, Man? You face consequences that no weaponry on earth can curb. Our time is nigh, yet you continue to rape and murder and pillage that which is not yours nor ever has been yours to rape, murder and pillage. Do you not see your crimes?

MAN: Yes. I understand my crimes, but if I drop my staff, my sheep will not know who I am or who to follow, they'll wander off and be eaten by some wild beast.

HUMANITY: You shouldn’t lead your sheep, Man. You should follow them.

MAN: Yeah! Right off the nearest cliff!

HUMANITY: You’re not serious enough, Man. You became an addict to hatred and loneliness and rape and fear; you felt you’d rather laugh than cry. A very short time passes and the laughter became the only thing you recognized as valuable to what you allowed to be poured into and out of your rotting throat.

MAN: “poured into my rotting throat”? What the-? Wait? Where the hell is my flock?

HUMANITY: They are with me now.

MAN: What the hell are me and my wife supposed to do to live if we haven’t any sheep? I demand you return my sheep forthwith, Humanity!

(HUMANITY throws up a thick green and mostly black liquid that splatters all over the ground in front of MAN.)

MAN: Son-of-a- Are those my sheep?

HUMANITY: No. It’s your bile, or more specifically, it is Man’s bile, a minuscule drop of it, at that. I’m often sick. I move about the earth and discharge bile, usually in more convenient places than on someone’s feet. Man is beginning to see it now. They’re beginning to notice things aren’t right, things aren’t going well, yet things are going just as Man is making them according to his superstitions, his god-smacking piety and his utterly profane noisemaking!

MAN: Wow.

HUMANITY: Wow is right. Question is: What are you going to do about it now that mankind is teetering on the edge of the abyss?

MAN: How does one possibly answer such a question? Logically? Flippantly? Theatrically?

HUMANITY: The method is up to you, but you must begin to answer for the out of control clamor now or face the consequences of the destruction of Eden.

MAN: Can I at least eat before I begin?

HUMANITY: Do as you wish, Man. Just remember that time is of the essence and you’ve not much of it to spare.

MAN: Would you like to eat with me and my wife this evening?

HUMANITY: I really shouldn’t. I’ve eaten recently and I’ve got miles to trudge before I’m done.

MAN: Sounds horrifying! …My wife is a good cook. Are you sure you won’t eat with us?

HUMANITY: I’m not that hungry, not after eating all those sheep.

MAN: NO! You ate them all?

HUMANITY: Yes.

MAN: Son-of-a-Why? Why, in the name of all things decent, would you do such a foolish thing?

HUMANITY: I was hungry.

MAN: Fair enough. Then I insist that you come to dinner, it’s the least you could do.

HUMANITY: Yes. I suppose it’s what I should do after divulging what I have to you.

(Sheep begin to enter again.)

MAN: Wait? Here are my sheep! I thought you said you ate them all?

HUMANITY: I said sheep, I didn’t say yours.

MAN: Oh! Thank God!

HUMANITY: It wasn’t God that spared your sheep, it was me.

MAN: Oh! Thank humanity!

HUMANITY: I like you, Man.

MAN: I like you too, Humanity.

HUMANITY: Will I frighten your wife?

MAN: Yes. But don’t worry, she’ll soon adjust. She’s seen me at my worst and she’s still with me, so you stand, at the least, a fifty-fifty chance.

HUMANITY: Oh. Good.

(MAN and HUMANITY begin to laugh. The wind begins to blow.)

VOICEOVER: The Homeless now begin to play their respective instruments at a slightly faster pace, still, it’s a rather gloomy song.

NARRATOR: The End.

SIDEKICK: Curmudgeon. (Blackout.)

Once upon a time in America, a father gave a gift to his young boy. The child had hoped for a gun, instead it was a globe. “What is it, Daddy?” the boy asked? “It is the world, my son.”

The boy sat on the floor spinning it `round and `round, watching as the oceans and land blurred into one. Soon the boy grew tired of spinning his new gift and asked, “Where is America, Daddy?”

“There is America.” he did say.

“What about Vietnam, Daddy?”

“There will be plenty of time for learning, now go outside and play.”

Time began to pass by quickly and with each passing year the boy would ask his father, “Where is Vietnam, Daddy?” and each time the father would say, “There will be plenty of time for learning. Now go outside and play.”

Then time lunged forth so fast that the boy was a soldier heading for a war in Iraq. He stood now before his own young son, “This is what my Daddy gave me when I had just turned five.”

“What is it?”

“It is the world, my son.”

“Where is America, Daddy?”

“There’s America.” he said, putting his finger through the sky.

“What about Iraq, Daddy?”

“There’ll be plenty of time for learning, son.

Now give Daddy a kiss goodbye.”

I compel you to love your country.

To draw her into your arms ever so tenderly, to embrace her softly, dearly to your heart, to huddle close, near together her masses and sense her least sustained yearning.

I compel you to love your country.

A nation that lifted the breast of humanity caressing it tenderly toward equality’s rapture with gentle fingers of selfless, searing desire exploring over her ever toward paradise.

I compel you to love your country.

Freedom lovers damp in stiff-limbed writhing stumbling kisses upon red-barreled bravery, softly probing her robust and supple liberty, heed now her cries of woeful sovereignty!

I compel you to love your country.

Between her Trail of Tears and Mount Misery she still waits upon the coupled plains of affection ready for our design and mastery of this worlds love panting heavy expectation upon her shape.

I compel you to love your country.

Perched upon the shore of Rolles Creek she waits with Mount Pleasant in reach of her willing fingers. With expectant sounds of closure now within her folds she lunges forth with an expectant mouth!

I compel you to love your country.

O! Gentle sleep now beckons to her languid pink flesh as the rogues tongue laps at her ebbing shores of joy and beckons her let go of her valuable love’s embrace lunging forth behind her eager lips!

She counters not… for she is the boiling hunger we seek.

What a devoted worship we’ve had with the motherland. Many a great poet has written their songs upon her flesh; their bright and shimmering waters lapping her shores in ardent freedom’s want of hopes howling, dripping heat.

I compel you to love the world!

On this day of days let us remember her youthful glow, her ripe fruit of wonder, her drowsy ache of emancipation, her most alluring burnish upon our exploring of her skin. (The burden of immense throbbing now falls upon her heart!)

I compel you to love the world!

America, carry your waves to all shores. Hope, not savagery, in your goodness, not in impudent desire to control destiny. Leave not the naked child, but your desire alone on the road. Shelter not your intentions, but those most needful and hungry.

I compel you to love the world!

We have been witness to our dove, crippled and flailing in terror! We've been onlookers to our expectations emerging fruitless, watching unmoved while our oily desire bleeds into the waters and the cold white eyes of death tread progressively before us.

I compel you to love the world!

Come now, peace. Come now, warriors, lay down your guns to witness the beauty at your hands as she lays down your sword and with dripping red lips envelops your craving to possess her. Do you not hear the night voices calling you with an angels whisper?

I compel you to love the world!

To open the door and step out into the bright sun, desire can wait. Take notice of the many tender, breathing, soul-caked living. Gaze upon the world’s most unbendable faith in humanity. Gently touch her skin, delicately massage her furious soil.

I compel you to love the world!

Enter her sculpting space and weave a covering made of lifeless war. Paint upon her face a gentle art made of your temples sweat. Scribe a love song upon her back with the eagle’s most willing blood. Erect in her a tower of light for all to see that they might weep.

I compel you to love the world!

The masses of age lie here and we should not be so ready to die like confused animal’s hooved in selfishness, deficient and artless. The world is full of freedom lovers damp in stiff-limbed writhing, stumbling kisses upon red-barreled bravery, tenderly probing liberty.

I compel you to love the world!

Amid her supple lands and majestic mountains she waits our affection, ready for our desire and design embracing her most ready warmth needing our hot hope upon her shape, wanton as wide-eyed first love.

Heed now the world’s hot desire for freedom pulling us in. With hopeful whisper's within her waters, she leans forth, expectant.




Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman