To State Street--A Random
Place (1999)
Written for my favorite street in my old college town of Madison, Wisconsin
I have forgotten my tickets
to the ballet,
Yet since crowds are so obliging,
A ballet can start unannounced,
I can be the choreographer
and director.
Most distances can be measured
in creative space,
Most people are actors . .
. I pull on my costume.
In a restaurant scene the waiters
steal all the lines,
And laugh as they take off
their poses and count their money,
The cooks grumble in the back
alley,
Cooling their perspiration
and their throbbing malcontent.
I dance a street dance and
the acrobats and jugglers nod in recognition,
The extras pretend to blend
into the day,
We stop and sing a song about
inertia,
Perhaps our anxious voices
give the song more meaning than it deserves.
The heroine stops and poses
a lament,
It is like a question . . .
should it be important?
Perhaps a sorcerer is involved
and we have used the wrong scenery,
The ballet can be allegorical
and the sorcerer is Indecision,
Three small ballerinas dressed
alike appear as muses,
And whisper the answer to the
heroine.
The hero seems confused,
I tell him the answer itself
is not important,
Some messages do not extend
beyond the theatre,
Anyway, my feet have grown
weary.
I run through the aisles to
find the producer,
She is hailing a cab . . .
a ballerina is the driver.
*****
The Poetry of Vonne Barnett
