Hi Harlem #22

#22 The Classical Theater of Harlem

Downstage left, enter the Self in the making
of what we all must see, the busy and free crayon,
the things you can do with a piece of string,
then it gets called names, it calls others names,
one name rising above the others to stand for
the Self’s self, for whom one makes a bouquet
of involuntary thought and ventures beyond
the house, listening in the wing for the place
to come back on stage, for it loves the stage,
the strutting and the fretting, the figure it cuts
with its kitchen scissors around the play script,
understanding so much is pre-given and all one
 can do is to inflect a line or two in a particular
way, to hold the pistol with one hand or two,
to drop one’s head or hold it up, before moving
to the end, upstaged by the audience, and right.

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