Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

 

Archive

 

 

Volume 12 Number 3, December 2011

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WAY TO HEAVEN by Juan Mayorga

Winnipeg Jewish Theatre, 2011

 

Arne MacPherson in an SS uniform

as a “reasonable,” cultured commandant

of a concentration camp dressing up

for a Red Cross inspection, ready

to put on a show for all the world

is a stage, finally, on stages where

images are refractions of other images

 

and evil is left to work like acid

burning through all reality until

the trains arrive at 6 and replacement

actors are called up to serve roles

that won’t be left vacant but always

call for the same gestures, repeated

 

endlessly till all that’s left are gestures

in the service of a Third Reich

meant to look like a clean work

of art echoed in every detail and

no one’s safe as long as everyone is

an understudy for a greater director

in Berlin ready to recast his puppets

 

all of this arrives clarified and

sifted through MacPherson’s face

to my third row seat in a world

where made up “facts” again

have begun to rule – all the world

must not become anyone’s stage

again

 

 

- P.K. Brask