Trying to get into the habit of writing, I thought I’d try an excercise with a bit of a random element: write a poem for every seven letter word on page 393 of Orhan Pamuk’s novel Snow. There are seventeen. The first was “onstage.”
Then today I saw this exercise about writing with drama. Seemed to lend itself to “onstage,” so here we are. Sixteen more to go.
Onstage
Whatever you’ve come here to get–
Pleasure, catharsis, wisdom–
Just fuck off. Please.
I’ve got nothing to give.
I’m as empty and pathetic as you are.
Still there?
Have you come for a scolding then?
Alright, I’ll gladly oblige.
You’re a bunch of fucking, ignorant baboons!
How’s that?
You don’t know art from your own ass.
You wouldn’t recognize it
If it hit you in the fucking face like a two-by-four.
I spit on your pretensions.
Shall I piss on them too?
(Fourth wall be damned, eh?)
Yes, careful there in the front row.
Didn’t you get a raincoat with your playbill?
Hmm. You must forgive these opening night oversights.
I assure you it won’t happen again.
Just have a word with the ushers after the show.
They’ll arrange everything for tomorrow’s matinee.
That’s better. Now where were we?
Right, we had come to fuck you.
Fuck you for humiliating auditions,
For kissing directors’ asses,
For tedious rehearsals,
And for the nightly indignity of shoehorning oneself
Into some imbecile playwright’s bloodless idea of a character.
All for what?
So that you might experience the ersatz revelations of the theatre?
So that you philistines might congratulate yourselves
On spending an evening away from the TV?
(And still, of course, catch the late show.)
Wake up, why don’t you!
Can’t you see it’s all bullshit.
There’s no magic, no moonshine, no meeting of minds.
It’s a fucking racket, just like everything else.
Yes, here they come now.
I wondered what was keeping them.
Don’t be alarmed; this monologue was starting to drag anyway.
It’s time for act one, scene two: the boys in blue.
Whatever else you might think,
You can’t say you didn’t get your money’s worth of drama tonight.
I’ll be with you officers momentarily.
Just let me wrap this up.
No. Wait. You clumsy ass–I haven’t finished.
The bombs! The fucking bombs are falling!
Can’t you hear the fucking bombs!?
