To Madam Irene Papas without permission but with

profound admiration

Music rises and holds

Curtain rises

Lighting to suggest garden

Enter MEDEA

Music fades under speech

MEDEA speaks:

Here where solitude becomes the solace of the questioning soul

Alternate ages

Intervene between the positive and the known:

But the length of latitude survives,

To brave the fainting spirit and it's reviving.

The argument, naturally, will not end there.

Concluding compromise being always quite unknown in such affairs.

Melody will be broken and damage ungratefully acknowledged

Before anything like natural harmony can be subversively restored.

(Which one has no doubt at all it will.) Seeing brings not quite the right sensation now.

Belief, leading to perception, pierces the brilliant chilliness of this immortal,

yet contentious underview.

"My lover " she said

"was a strange young man clutched by the varying scent of Stockman and Barossa."

Neither of whom, of course, were known to her

Nor anyone before the entering,

Inch by mile of handsome Alexander into Babylon.

Taking, most likely, her young man with him.

And now for sure I am myself well into, and well lost in,

The wrong century.

We do not know , we cannot tell  -

Except occasionally, perhaps  -

Where the long sweep of shadowed hills before us

Melts into the downward slope of an alternate terrain,

Demanding exploration:

Until slowly and amazingly they shift,

Falling sideways upon each other soundlessly.

When one can recognise at once that there before us lies

My Garden Of Medea.

No time to flee

Once must go forward now,

Willing or unwilling to my welcome.

Music rises and holds

Lighting

Movement

Music fades under speech

Trapped in amazement

The existential compilation of this age and time

Shatters

The fragrance of geranium and calendula

Well, what of that?

Not much, perhaps.

The scent of flowers carries no weight outside an echoing of dreams:

But yet, those same flowers do conceal memories of others,

And reveal forgotten lovers in their new and very splendid guise.

Eternally grateful,

I remain wrapped in the solitude of others.

To the eventual revelation of myself.

Embowered now, I sense and then eventually perceive,

The gleam, the sullen shining amid them all,

Of Deadly Nightshade.

Shall I put forth my hand to touch?

Or, reverting elsewhere,

Learn some sort of subtlety from it's dreaded majesty, half concealed?

No more questions, for I am no necrophiliac, and desire you live,

Live in my bed and arms,

To bring myself forever your concluding solace.

Yet almost as I am, betrayed by my own passion,

I can not help but sense the murmuring of poison

among these enticing and bewitching blooms.

Could the day be coloured elsewhere,

And rather more proficiently than by some inexperienced plunderer of colour.

This garden would be seen to glow

With rather more than transubstantial tints. 

Venom posses it's own intransigent beauty,

Usually unrevealed to most by all.

Herein, however,

The mottled harmony of pain gathers glory about itself:

In darkness or in damaged light.

Beware if now without essential experience you touch admiringly,

And then for any reason touch your finger to your lips.

Poison extends, certainly, no favours here.

Robed by Ivy you may well then find yourself advancing, bloated upon eternity.

Music rises and holds

Lighting

Movement

Music fades under speech

I shall distil in bubbling retort collected essences from Nature's darker underside.

Which plants in their growing are so beautiful

That they enchant the unwary to the Gate Of Death.

This is their business, after all,

And like faithless lovers there is always a touch of ground diamond in their kiss.

Within these angled and patrician leaves Life and Death -

Fractious ferrets in a chivvy magic--battle against the taste of Time.

Some will win and some will lose.

But I shall live, my fingers sparkling with the light of venom,

And like a thin snake whose wandering identity mine own envenomed twilight so willingly conceals.

Cool breezes hardly ever stir the glossy leaves of these rare sentinels of desire.

The poisonous beauty of the frail laburnum trembles against the darker thrust of punishing yew.

Time it's own magistrate whispers in mine ear

A certain gift is needed to equalize a slow happiness

Speaking always in conundrums

Which only I, perhaps, can hear.

But

Hearing

Knowing

Understanding

My hands

Then hold

The trembling balance of the scales

Music rises and holds

Lighting

Movement

Music fades under speech

Strangely, perhaps

I

Am everybody's friend.

Maybe because all at one time or another

All have need of me.

What is it that I offer, then?

Solace and comfort.

Revenge and  bare atonement.

Everything that's human finds an echo in my garden.

Is it any wonder

I

Am loved by everyone?

Here is silence.

This is a silent world.

Where no birds ever come

And surely if they do

They never sing.

CONTINUE

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