November, 1997
The Corp
We work on the ground floor, answering phones.
Normally we operators find
We have to keep our eyes on our own terminals.
The flickering fluorescents hurt my eyes,
They make my hands look blue, and all the other
Telephone associates look haggard.
That hasn't changed materially since
I first arrived here three summers ago.
Oh, sure, they've shifted name plates 'round the room
As supervisors earned their overdue
Promotions to the panel credit lines.The walls are always grey and always will be
Even if they're painted joyful pink
Like the summer fields we see outside the windows
Before they draw the curtains every night.So in my dinner break I read library books
Of poetry from long before computers
Required people to tell them what to do.Apologies
To you who wanted to read a commentary
On modern work, and what it means to me. I guess
I meant to write one, but it's all gone wrong.
What was commentary wants to be a song.
She Sonnetizes
She wouldn't say that Virtue in these times
Holds judgment in a splendid rankèd Court
And hands out stampèd Tickets for a short-
Er ride to Paradise's shining climes.
She sees our Virtue in our darkest crimes,
our decadence, and less in metaphored
complex profundity, for our preferred
pursuits aren't suited to lyrical rhymes.
Thus when she was laid flat by adorations
she found no help in her times' explorations,
in all their empty deathly limpid art:
no medium for Love's justification.
So this modern woman knows, for she is smart,
a woman's place cannot be in the heart.
Ballad
A maiden walked the meadows wide
To show the moon how her hair was tied
With golden ribbons hanging down
To the hem of her dress, brushing the ground.But a voice called out, from the valley marsh
"Ho, Golden Lady, pray, be not harsh,
But see me here in this awful dire
Danger of dying in this thick quagmire!"Full to his shoulders sunk was he;
"What has happened here?" said she.
"A moon-wind snuffed the light of my fire,
And tumbled I, into this quagmire.""I offer my aid," she said, sincere,
"For I would not wish that you perish here."
"But you are weak, will quickly tire
As you lift me from this thick quagmire."The moon shone silent on the scene.
The maiden stood, with wide sleeves clean.
The doomed man sank, the mud rose higher,
The mud of the dreadful dark quagmire."Then I shall run for help," she said,
"And raise the townsfolk from their beds."
"Oh, no," said he, "As you cross the shire,
You'll surely fall in a deep quagmire."She breathed, "I want to give you aid."
But he shrugged, and firmly shook his head,
And doomed, he sank, the mud rose higher,
The mud of the awful dark quagmire.Her ribbons trembled, flashed moonlight,
As she stared upon the loathsome sight;
Then her eyelids tightened with frozen ire:
"Die, then," she cursed, "in your deep quagmire!""Oh, Golden Lady, be not harsh,
As I sink down in this lonely marsh!"
She said, "I am cruel, for it is true,
I lost another, just like you!"The maiden's ribbons brushed the ground,
As the unfortunate man sank down and drowned.
And meadow-thorns her skirts did tear,
As tears drenched the ribbons that tied her hair.
The Priestess Addresses the Mob
You loathesome hoard, you who would stir the nests
Of sacred serpents as they speak of Stars
And Moon and Sun and everything we know,
Of how we came to be upon this ground,
With grain for bread and children at our hearths;
How dare you come with torches to this place!
And yet you stamp and mutter as if dumb,
Not seeing how Her curses fall upon you,
You who refuse to keep Her sacred Rites,
Who will not speak Her songs and do Her works,
Who grumble at the triflingest of duties,
Who say you want a man to be your God.
What is this God? What is this strange compulsion,
To see Her in your image? Does She not
Provide an ample portrait in Her hills
And valleys of Her shape and Regal mind?
I say to you, I say, She'll grant your prayers,
The instant that you climb these sacred stairs,
And slaughter these our hired bodyguards
And rape us in the orchards and the yards,
And She will turn her face away from you;
The charge of losing everything we knew,
Our numbers and our wisdoms and our lands,
Will numb and curse your brute-and-bloody hands.
And when She deigns to show her face on Earth,
Your reign will've proved of empty hopeless worth:
A century, stagnation and contention,
Of dullard sense, no news and no invention,
And She'll return, cloth'd fresh in robes of white,
To hover, as the Moon, in every night.
Copyright © Emily Compton
All rights reserved.Emily Compton lives in Portland and is an intern at Portland Stage Company. She grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, and graduated in Theatre and English from the University of Richmond in May, 1997. She also has written original plays produced by the New Play Theatre in Nashville, the Young Georgian Playwright's Festival at Piedmont College, and the University of Richmond Players.