On A Springtime Production Of Ionesco’s “Exit The King” (Fontbonne College,1970)(Third Version)

[to the memory of Don Garner (who played The King)

and to my Father, Robert R. (Bob)Douglas, newspaperman, In Memoriam] [dulce et decorum est…my Father’s newspaper was the best]*

all his kingdoms cried: you are going away!
and we the last breath witnessing
on the stage

do the dominoes falling edge to edge
displayed for the handkerchief benefits of lace
footlit, the fitful society in the audience

well met!

the tickety tack rickety rack of the teletypes
as I veer back

and day has fallen,
all its golden suns;
Garbled: unto the Kingdom Come

and night, with its moon manes wavering,
trebled, troubling the linotype means
the balcony scenes sans ladders,

cheering sections,
the princess caught
in the madrigal brambles

and the lutes, abandoned.
for this little space
there was infinite treasure, grace

and Time grew large as a Heart
that set it all in lilac motion
swaying, and the fragrant winds

now are we scattering
the last of our devotions

and valentine wise-
in commotion,
the councils dissolved like comets

absolving the paucity, fragility
of the last edition, and the last words Flare!
one last, at the landing of

crystal staired and docketed sighs, the beats,
the unclocked exiles clocked, the streetwise surprise
no more seeing in disguise, hearing or bearing

calling it in and the rewrites, the headspinning
the deadlines rocketing

the flights of birds distraught, breaking off, disappearing
into the jeweled, and now, the unsyllabled worlds…headlines fraught

the air quivering, teardrop diamond shivering
with what was here.
Before…the late great Copy, heavenward,

bourne from the stage
and the nevermores

mary angela douglas 7 march 2018

*(my Father’s newspaper, The Arkansas Gazette…for a long time known as the oldest newspaper west of the Mississippi from November 20,1819-October 18,1991 when it went bust shortly after being bought up by Gannett.)

This poem mingles three strands: my memory of Dan Garner’s beautiful performance in that most poetic play about death, Exit the King, my elegy for my Father, and my elegy for his paper, The Arkansas Gazette.