Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Three Linden Opera: Mack's Soliloquy

(All due apologies to John Gay, Berthold Brecht, Kurt Weill and just about eveyrone else associated with this great franchise from Swift to Ute Lemper...)

Mack:

This is the life, that other life.
By day, by day, I see no sun,
my joy is killed before begun.
Mealy mouthed and non-confrontational,
while haunting dark corners for the sensational.

By morning's light I drive to work,
by noon I'm trying just to shirk,
by evening ranting in my car,
at my dreams receding from near to far.

By night my face is lit like a glow,
in world where other things I know.
Wits are currency in game,
and infamy clings to my name.

A world, beyond all belief,
filled with drama, fraud, and grief.
Made of images and sounds,
filled with tyrants, whores and clowns.

Faces, figures, and features,
strange and delicate creatures.
Men who live as pimps, or even whores,
endless bloodless virtual wars.
A place without scruples or other mores,

That is where I go,
that is the second life I know,
If you want to find me,
or of other life remind me,
search the seediest places,
where the girls, they have no faces.

Where guillotines are for sex,
horses are not just for effects,
and morality is one of your defects.
It's there, I fare, nowhere,
but anywhere, there is, a connection.
I enter without compunction.
So of my adventures you should read,
my stories of others linden greed.

That's where, we fare,
nowhere,
but anywhere we are.
How near, how far?
How much, how close?
Behind the mask as anyone knows,
is just the distance of your breath.

Have a linden, another linden,
but don't spend them all,
in one place.

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