Blog Archives

‘Sweat’ by Lynn Nottage at the Goodman

3/31/2019

Sweat by Lynn Nottage—well, not the play but the playwright—came highly recommended, so I got a ticket. The Goodman production was solid; though standard fare for a company that takes no chances and gives up no surprises. Like Twilight Bowl immediately before it at the Goodman, it felt like a typical bar play. Not my favorite genre, I’d rather see Cheers.

Ron O.J. Parson, the Chicago director-of-choice for the seasonal “black play” at theaters across Chicagoland, did a workmanlike job: too much side-business (characters wiping tables or playing solitaire at the bar) didn’t distract so much as reveal a desperation toward verisimilitude. But it was hard to endorse any of the protagonists.

The finale was moving, a cut above much triteness that went before, but the play never lived up to its title, which the action didn’t support. It was marketing an idea (or even an idealized version) of blue-collar work. Having worked in a few factories in my younger days, I could poke holes where the verisimilitude failed; but the play was well-intentioned.

Dead Air

3/31/2019

If I could write your story
The book would not be short,
Endless the territory
To cover my report—

And who would be to read it,
When all have stories too,
Nor I myself do need it,
Memory-charged all through.

Yet—lingered on each moment—
I think what I would say,
How love survives entombment
Despite the death that day.

Before you left you kissed me
Profusely if at all,
As if to tell you missed me
Before that death blow fall.

I whispered but “I’m sorry”
Before you fell asleep,
My last words—as life’s worry
Fell from you, death to keep.

Your falling was not easy
But came remorseless quick,
My swooning soul made queasy
In the solemn air made thick.

The Interim

3/27/2019

There is a little interim
Between a loved one’s death
And our own death forthcoming, slim
The window, scant the breath.

How many days await us ere
The darkness falls, now dusk?
The scent pervasive everywhere
As roses blow their musk.

How many heads have fallen!—Ours
Anon awaits its frost,
Concordant with the ticking hours
Till everything is lost.

Writing

3/27/2019

All writing hands are not the same,
Some people make of it a game
While others, hungry for relief
Expose a monumental grief.

Springtime Parting

3/26/2019

The springtime shoots are sprouting,
While you have gone away
On a perpetual outing,
Eternity, they say.

They say you have “crossed over,”
Another world beyond
To claim you, fields of clover
Beside a little pond.

I’m yearning to believe it—
If heaven, let there be
A home, nor ever leave it:
I’ll join you greedily.

You left in the wrong season,
But I am left with spring,
With neither rhyme nor reason
But comfort flowers bring.

Rest in Peace, Rest in Power

3/26/2019

Let peace be yours that was not had
When life flowed in your veins,
Who came from a beginning sad,
A world replete in pains.

We never understood the rage
Nor what the triggers were,
As though a beast fit for a cage,
Yet you grew milder.

A proffered finger may get bit,
Yet you would take no bribes;
Nor hatreds ever hate remit
Laden with diatribes:

We grew to learn a sort of peace
Albeit tentative,
A comity—now death’s release
Leaves us bereaved to live.

Nobody ever knew such joy
As you put on display
When irritations that annoy
Seemed briefly gone away.

I felt the moment your breath ceased,
But death, as death will do,
Not undiminished but increased
Keeps love pulsating through.

So rest in peace. A story closed
To never be writ down,
But on our hearts impressed, imposed
A message of renown.

The Accused

3/14/2019

His honor and integrity intact,
He faced the Court of Justice (kangaroo),
Declaring that his word was not an act:
“I testified, and every word was true.”

He scarcely understood the forces that
Arrayed themselves against him, in cabal,
A league of secrecy: he calmly sat
In Law’s tribunal and refuted all.

Was Justice done, or Justice proved a sham?
A jury meanwhile makes deliberation.
His honesty determines, and I am
Convinced, but others harbor reservation.

Why did they “set him up”? It was not him,
The victim merely an inconsequential
Necessity, in acting out their whim,
A sacrifice, so he came providential.

No, he stood innocent; but they arrayed
Such circumstances as would falsify,
But he was not what the appearance made,
Steadfast in this: he had not told a lie.