Beckett Joins the Cast

A Work in Progress
22

          imagine 

musicians play 

     frets of transparent guitar

           five nylon strings against blue sky

                  twenty-one strings

                       a sitar remembering 

                            aspects of George

                                  a three-stringed lute

                                         lamenting Tai Ching

                                                a moon reflected in a river

her face full of flowers     like snow her skin

imagine landscapes of a bay 

                          seen from a headland

and we’re approaching that headland

landing there

   stepping down 

        from a conveyance

             that brought us 

across rivers, deserts, forests, pastures, mountains

we are sitting in 

            a darkened theatre 

                  lit only by moonlight

                        

floating free in air

in five colored clouds      wafted by the wind

             we press upon 

       an empty stage

                    where ghosts stand

 forever 

Agamemnon 

Clytemnestra 

Oedipus   Phaedra

Hamlet   Lear   Ophelia   Portia 

  Catullus Lesbia                           

Dido Aeneas 

 Jason but 

        but not Medea

then Theseus   Ariadne   Estragon   Vladimir

Beckett appears on stage

Nodding acquaintance to the assembled cast

Who had been waiting for Godot

Like Aldington a man who had fought in war

A member of the Maquis, the Resistance

A first-class bat wearing his cricketer’s cap

Turning to the audience

“if you can provide the music

I can provide the words

Just hum a tune I can scan to

Give me a beat I can rap to”

Boasted Beckett

The Irish saved Western civilization

Back when Donal was a scribe

In a part he’d been cast for 

sharpening quills a set of goose feather

when Ireland faced off Caesar

But nothing the Irish could have done

Would have saved Egypt 

I see Medea’s not here

Was it an accident the library burned down

When Julius Caesar was in town?

First Alexander conquered

Then Ptolemy’s ruled

Then the Romans took over

Words won’t hold back armies, but water will

Ireland is a refuge 

For descendants of those horse loving people

The Celts, Indo Europeans from north of the Black Sea

Migrants back in the day

Refugees from Gaul

Those who came West who brought the same stories

As those that went East

Stories in Erse stories in Sanskrit

Thanks God we’ve an ocean between us

For those emigrants who went there

Are turning back towards us now

Looking for new frontiers to conquer

First claiming Greenland then all of Canada

Like Romans wanting to tax and defraud

Vax and reward

To be Irish is a state of mind

To be an Irish writer is a responsibility

Keeping the story going that needs to be retold

For in each upswell of mass emotion

Some hero must slay the Minotaur 

Or children of the elites

Will be devoured by fear

“On. Say on”

“Try again.  Fail again.  Fail better”

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2025