JUST DESSERTS (PROFESSOR P. STROOM at ARISTOPHANES’ RESTAURANT)
madness here
has homefield advantage
he quipped to himself
waiting for his mezze platter
despite the lunacy
the
cuisine
as theatre
he loves their Mediterranean food
winces though
when he finds
himself initiated into
the ambiance
not with gentle care
but the cultural
and artistic equivalent
of artillery bombardment
no simple
establishing shot to
ease us in, settle the stomach
not even
steady steadycam track
eerie as a dream perhaps
but not
as biologically unsettling
as mounted camera traversing 180
humanly impossible at the pace it pans
Ah, these Greeks
soon they will stoop to food
being delivered from kitchen to table
by balloon
as a feminist preaches that
sex must be withheld
and birdshit on the floor legacy of
earlier theological protest
patrons here provoked
them into
and look here: Dionysus and his pal
straight back from the dramatic Oscars
down in Hades
those dull tragedians at each other again
pitching their plays into the contest
desperate to win
the waiters, mechanicals to a man (and man dressed as woman)
who would be actors, directors, are
struggling scriptwriters
walking like
Atlantean androids, Elizabethan marionettes
(courtesy of Peter via Bottom and
Jan Kott)
breezing past
not taking his order
suddenly Dionysus speaks, having suddenly
joined him
making some pun
about his
best
beautiful rival, Apollo,
and just desserts
