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Tuesday, March 09, 2004

For Spalding Gray




["The monologue and the man, ever hard to distinguish, had fused entirely. And vanished. All that was left was tragedy." John Penner, houstonpress.com]




There is a species of clown
Who invites us to watch him drown.

Jarry as Ubu, atrocity doll,
Was big daddy of them all.
First alter-ego, theatrical game,
Ubu and Jarry merged into the same
Stammering, angry, uproarious joke
On all of us. But while we woke
From the stage, Jarry stayed behind.

Flooded by his own creation, his mind
Dissolved in the drama of the thing.

In the soul of all comedy kings
There's the same
Black pooling of the atrocity game.

Our horror is hilarious, the way they wear it.
What kills them is their need to share it.
Posted at: 3/09/2004 01:19:00 PM