gingatao

The Pantomime.

Like a broken glass under a Punch and Judy stall
somewhere just south of the river he pops off
the red nose and throws it in the general direction
of the dog at the dressing room door.

Christmas has always been a terrible time for me
he mumbles into the mirror just listen to the sound
of the word Chrrstm’ss sharp and crystalline
like a cold dart through the palm of the hand
when the only parts available for bust down old drunks
worse than Ollie Reed, I tells ya, are Fagin stealer
of childhoods or Scrooge, one of his crew.

There’s a tiny box theatre down the road
he thinks untying his outsized shoes
where university drama students are doing
a modernist Passion play in which the sinner
faces god and says, in your omnipotence
could you not have found some easier redemption
than suffering? And when you say ‘my ways
are not yours’, do you realise that
not understanding why
only makes it worse.

The ending is predictable, I’ll never get the part,
as he shrugs on his overcoat, I’ll only make them
laugh.