In Thebes

(Miserable, miserable that I am. Where am I? Where am I going? Where am I cast away? Who hears my words? Cast away indeed. Dreadful to the sight of the eye. Dreadful to the ear.) A crimson sexual urge Whipped into a fury of formless words Criminal by any other measure Permitted within this gilded vision The cooling winds of night wipe clean the stairs of leaves Leaving only dimpled, worn, chipped stone A place for us to take a seat As spine becomes bridge from step to step Hands above your head The tempers of lords drive like dogs through the snow Sled and sleigh I said and slayed (The god of whom we shall speak and whom we shall pray is called Apollo. He represents one aspect of omnipotence. He is the sun god, giver of light and giver of spiritual light. Our tragedy is largely concerned with the contrast of darkness and light. The darkness of blindness and the light of the eyes, the darkness of ignorance, and the lightness of knowledge. The darkness of matter, the lightness of spirit. Imagination. In fact, this place is a stage. Around us are cameras, great lamps, the machinery of making films, but now: imagine…) What reclines below me now Purrs and whines And a narrow eye spies a pair of white boots Crossing under the street light Moving in a hurried gait Whisper suspicions Bewitched in the splendor Flaming June In a prison of glass (A man becomes a tyrant out of insolence. He climbs and climbs until all people call him great. He sings upon the summit, and god flings him thence.) (Is there a more miserable man in the world then the man before you now? Is there a man more hated of heaven? No stranger, no citizen may receive him into his house. Not a soul may speak to him. And no mouth but my own mouth has laid this curse upon me. Am I not wretched? May I be swept from this world before I have endured this doom. These things, o king, fill us with terror…) A ballet for lovers A v of swans in the sky A pair of black boots Once measured, twice tied