Excerpts from "Unveilings"
by Gary Beck
Time Out of Joint
Once everyone believed
the world was flat.
Most listened to science
and agreed it was round.
Some still believe its flat,
a testament to the narrow minded.
Many do not believe
in climate change,
denying the wildfires,
hurricanes, tornados,
other natural disasters,
have nothing to do
with global warming,
ignoring the scientists.
These same deniers
accept daily weather changes,
one day warm, next cold,
as condition normal,
unable to connect
local to global.
Snow Storm
The snow keeps falling
faster and faster.
I can no longer see the building
just across the street.
I sit in internet cave
coddled with electric comforts.
The weather man keeps telling us
its a big blizzard.
We need no PhD
to tell us that.
The whiteout is complete.
I sit in internet cave
in total isolation,
insulated from reality
by the white blanket
covering the outer world.
For a few moments I wonder
has everything disappeared?
Am I left alone
in the indifferent universe?
Then the smug voice
of the overpaid newscaster
reminds me life goes on
Unless shes a recording,
a sleekly designed android
meant to convince us
existence continues,
while I succumbing to illusion
as alienation subtracts me
from the community of Man.
Sharing
The radical extremist
who bombs a mosque,
church,
temple,
bombs all of us,
but some of us
dont know it.
Presence
Theatre professionals once knew
that every theatre has a ghost,
thats why we have a ghost light,
so the ghost can find his way
through a darkened theatre.
All my theatres had a ghost,
always benevolent,
never intrusive,
a positive presence.
My theatres were constructed
in non-theater environments,
adapted to odd spaces.
The oddest and best
was on Broadway and 42nd Street,
the Old Knickerbocker hotel
that was one of the poshest
in the early 1900s,
until it closed in 1921.
We had 10,000 square feet
on the 12th floor.
It was my first theatre,
not someone elses venue
and after the first nights rehearsal
I sat alone, enjoying the place,
when soft, beautiful singing filled the room.
I recognized an aria
that I heard before
and assumed it came from another floor.
I was curious the next day,
learned no one was above or below.
I heard a different aria that night
and tried to trace the source,
but couldnt find it.
The next night I had company,
my stage manager,
and production manager,
who also heard the wondrous song.
We did some research and learned
Enrico Caruso had his suite
in the space we occupied
and sang the national anthem
from his window at the end
of World War I.
My first theatre. My first ghost.
And what a ghost!
He sang to us many times
and we never told others,
for who believes in ghosts anymore?
Finality
My next store neighbor
died this morning.
They carried her out
on a white metal stretcher.
She wasnt old,
forty or fifty,
Im a poor judge of age.
She didnt have children
or a boyfriend,
so shell go to the cold earth
without mourners.
I feel bad
shell be buried
without ceremony,
but wont risk my life
traveling plague streets
for anyone but my loved ones.
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