catapult magazine

Dialectics of the Theatrical

by Benjamin Groenewold Van Dyk

For the poor, the oppressed, the ignored
should I shout
like the televangelist from the banks of the river Affluence,
like the politician reading the speechwriter’s words?
Should I whisper, slip beneath the noise
with a shoulder to cry on
and some of the standard phrases
advertised by the strong, yet sensitive sort?
When living in a live commercial
how to convince anyone these screams
cannot all be viewed sitting down with a bag of chips?

(After all, is not everything proclaimed as true
false,
and everything exhibited as authentic
scripted?)

For the beaten, the abused, the imprisoned
should I cry
saline solution tears or pain my eyes with black mascara
or – in an age without concentration camps -
wind barbed wire about a bicep
and slip into some niche – a bouncer’s,
a businessman’s, an activist’s,
or whatever other role someone has creatively written up?
In the theatre of the mundane,
how to convince anyone that
there are those spreadeagled under the whip
who are not bleeding ketchup?

(After all, is not every rebellion
a more fundamental act of conformity
and every display of compassion
calculated in terms of profit?)

For those walking in darkness, the seeing blind, the hearing deaf
how to convince anyone
I am speaking, out of character, to you?
Should I act
paint my face, memorize my script, put on borrowed finery
(for sackcloth and ashes are scarce
and, if found, worn only for effect)
and so elude the deluded, discomfort the comfortable,
enchant the disenchanted, disillusion all illusions,
to captivate the free and imprison darkness,
proclaim the favor of the Lord’s vengeance
and the close proximity of the Final Act?