Wordspray Poem by Paul Wilson

A TRAGEDY IN FOUR FACTS or THE NONCE-FORMATION by Horace Milburn

Presenter: I......... I am your toothless servant, and I..... I am made to make you look away!
Here.... sour berries grow, and a day, here, you know, passes quicker than a show,
And an hour, quicker than a flower can grow. So, hark! The …………………..
………………………..


Act 1 Scene 1: Old Spa, Mrs X in wheelchair

Mrs X: .....indomitable heart despite cardiac flip. I must count myself carefully lest I lose count of myself, doctor says (cocks an ear) . O what a wonderful man - I count myself lucky, so lucky! (silence) . So sad since Archie died! Now lucky to be back, happy days are here again! Hiphip hooray! I'm as lucky as the day is long! (slap-happy) .

Doctor: Now, Mrs X, don't excite yourself. You know you're shaky! But who is this (spotlight onto statue-like figure, balanced) ?

Mrs X: Oh!

Archie: (striking a pose) Mayhap I have waxed concupiscent in my lesser self, selling sureties and bonds; but my greater self has stridden boldly out to meet the world, like the head of a centipede (mimes) . That confidence trick! Perhaps you recall?

Mrs X: The fifth day...

Archie: Let the earth bring forth the living creature and the beast of the fields....

Mrs X: .....of my pains!

Archie: ...... and God created the great sea monsters, and every thing that creepeth upon the face of the earth, each according to its own kind.

Mrs X: O no! (shudders)

Archie: Let the earth bring forth..... stink! (they hold their noses)

Doctor: (muffled) ...... and God saw that it was no good, no good at all!

Archie: And God saw that it was the wearing of tinted spectacles. And did He not create (pause) polystyrene and enamel neon trinkets to vie with plastogenetic artform modular synthetic mutant beings possessed of...... cokecannery, generalmotory, panamery, chicanery, whiterthanwhitery, pseudogamery, magiccarpetry, new, old, and permanently broken. Blasphemous icons and shibboleths of dispensible throwaway nulife teleportable existence unexhorcised alone, in orbit!

Doctor: Ah - draught to cover drought. ‘Tis nothing!

Mrs X: But what great benefits! We have seen the programme on TV about hollowness, machinations, treachery and so on - and repeats until our brains curdled!

Archie: And then you start talking about crawling beasts. The beasts are watching! Soon they will be relaxing in our aircooled multiplex plug-in cells, our carpeted and childproofed pentups. Already the flies are gathering to witness the last dawn of the human torpor before we are relegated to the friezes, ancient remains, dust and unspeakably dark ages before the Gods reigned once more while our servant, the Earth, toils on eternally fulfilling its ineluctible destiny, spyhole for the stars, stretching back and forward in a tapeloop of time. The insects will give no quarter!

Audience: (nervous artificial clapping)


Next: a slow old beast (moron)

Beast: Origin unknown. Believed to be hybrid specimen relating to the bird of human myth, the Esau. Associated with omens, uneasiness, shifting of the wind and so on. Also the myopic bull celebrated in legend, the goat so forgotten, and the last survivor of holy Hiroshima. So, take your choice of how you assess, confront, relate, have intercourse with me.

Number: I am 2. My father and mother are 1 and 0. My grandfather is.... (loud roar, shuffling offstage; audience leaves) .... and so to the beginning again. We cannot afford to stop. To stop is to regress, regression is infinite, infinity is the ceaseless repetition of correlated patterns, yielding time and space; and soon..... (loud roar)

Archie: (oldly) Time is no longer pleasant. With it are interwoven THAT thought, THAT idea. A brave face turned to the world leaves 99 bare and timorous posteriors unable to couch themselves in elegant terms. What this amounts to is..... the disavowment of human design (loud bumhum)

Act 1, Scene 2: enter Jehovah's Witness, and others.

JW: Doom and apocalypse! Wrath, woe and chaos!

Chief witness: I do hereby swear, by the hand that is on this book, solemnly to recount, whole and unexpurgated, without error or omission, the celestial wanderings of A. The said person did enter upon said adventures on occasion of said birthday party. Having been awaiting the call, he did not fail when it came....

Kid Cain: Yes, I slew Abel. No, I didn't. I tried but I was not able! (sobs)

Chief W: .....In the midst of the jovial proceedings he did precipitously incline himself to the said vertical plane (roar of a jet passing overhead is heard, assembled company follow the sound with their eyes, until the noise dies away) ... vertical plane, I say, establishing beyond reasonable doubt a relation of intersection of straight lines in space, and dislodging numerous bottles of porter which broke to the four winds in heavy regimentation (sound as of bottles falling) , saying...

Archie: I now go forth resolutely and without presentiment, to voyage whither the urge commands. Amongst flower gardens and pagodas, winestubs, hamburger joints, drive-ins, public houses or bomas, I will continue tirelessly and devoid of feelings for further forlorn and farfetched faces. BUT (he raises, an arm, to command attention) I say unto you, before the world ends thrice; ; ; all of you will betray me. By hook or by diamond, by world or by mind, by stillness or by neurotic endeavour, by the old sense or by China. Therefore take due heed, meaning ‘per aspera ad astra'. I go to dance the dance!

Number: And so it was, thrice (a cousin!)

(All dance) .

Act 2, Scene 1: two men

One man: Why are you here?

Other: Why are you here?

One man: I'm here to ask the questions.

Other: I'm here to make up the numbers. (Cock crows, off)

One: Three times! (freezes)

Other: What is it you wish to do?

One: Ignore it, it's just...

Other: Yes?

One: (Quickly changes his mind) It's.... private! Oh, nothing really, it's just...

Other: Yes?

One: ..... on the lookout for.......... quick, there it goes! (he snatches at something)

(All jump up, flashes, blimps, hurried activity)

Other: What? Where?

One: There! Stop it!

Other: Where? What?

One: (subsides) It reminds me of my ddear, dear..... wife!

Other: (comprehension dawns) So you're....? You mean you're.....?

(No response from.....MO)


Act 2, Scene 2: Rocky scenery. Mo appears, strenuously clambering. Stops.

AM: Ah, Hellena! Oedipus! (with decisiveness) Bellypok! Show me..... the triceratops!

(Silence)

AM: (wails) Lost!

(Kind peasant passes by. Archie hails)

AM: (loudly) Hail, kind peasant!

Peasant: (no reply)

AM: You there, are you deaf?

Peasant: (no reply)

AM: What? Is there no founding spirit of humanity? Is there no pity? Are we doomed to the worms? Is this come to this? Do we present ourselves in this new guise? Are we lost now? (He falls to the ground and is soon asleep. The tide advances, the sun declines. The tide carries carrion for the gulls. The tide advances toward AM, groaning. And the little waves lap him with solace. He snores, and receives a mouthful of....)

AM: Oh, I am cast down! Sure the foul pestilential taste of smell is in my breath! (Looks around desperately) .

AM: (calmer) Hell hath wide horizons! All hope is gone! I rescind! (Collapses once more, inert, while the little fish bounce around him. Large crabs circumambulate him with caution. The sun turns its red back on him and all stench. Putrid dreams emante far up to the stars from the slung resting place of one marginal excretum of humanity. Sailing ships occupy the sea, plying speedily hither and thither. Butterflies skim the water because they are flying boats. The waves curl. All is in motion but but the savage mount, occupied by the beast of myth and legend, who stares silently down. And later, much later, we remember our loud adventurer, upon whom a barnacle has begun to affix itself, but who now stirs, turns over and then inclines himself precipitously to the towering vertical, upsetting the glassy sea in a wide flurry. He sets out resolutely into a now-abandoned ocean, swimming powerfully until he disappears) .

Act 3, Scene 1: (Reunion. Large company assembled together. Noises and glee)

Mrs X: We are gathered here together....

Face (First witness) : ........ in the presence of the Beast, to celebrate, if this can be told, the anticipated arrival of Archie Mo from nether regions. (Large number of company now turn out to be animals of every description, whose animated conversation dies away as they gaze out over the sea, awaiting their hero - our hero - in silence)

(Enter maid, wringing hands and lamenting)

Maid: I am maid, but noone will woo me. I am surely one of the chosen, but noone will choose me. I am the flame, but noone will light me. Why will noone touch me, although I am young and beautiful. I am frightened of living in a cave where the water drips, tip! tip! - although the rocks are coloured, living. The great beast roars, he has only to enter!

(Declaiming)

Late, and he does not come.
Even though it is dark he has not
Come. Through the darkness of dreamwhisperings
I am waiting here for him, masked erlking
To rend me limb from sacred limb
As though to prepare me for the
Darkness dreamt of the tomb and that
Is why he does not come.
Now my blood is broken, I have
Sung my hymn to him
Now my darkness has enclosed me round again
In a secret womb; alive, as though
Now his dark saint I feel throe
His naked heart departed from my salt-sultry woe….

Face: People! Gather round once more! I have a plan. The messenger passed once, and will pass again. He knows the way, back to the cave, that leads to the tunnel, that one part where we have to swim, or, by joining arms - we'll reach and touch - be able to gain the path past the tree where the treacherous guard will be hanged, from there spreading out to the open ground before we come to the ditch. From thence one of us will go forward with a message to tie on the sign which faces East, before continuing up craggy Cassiopea. Or, otherwise, I myself will test the wind, and having decided on a course of approach, will post a letter to my long-lost cousin, asking her to come and lend a hand in this, the most perilous stage, while we scale the cliff by that dangerous rope-ladder, arriving by morning on the rocky plateau from where the palace itself can be seen spread out below, splendid, where stories tell once broad alph the river ran. From there it shouldn't be troublesome. We use our wits to avoid the spies, to loot the place where the book is kept, beside the beaten drum, and return once more to the waiting land. We pause while the insect creeps the stem, then, not all loudly, we all follow, past the tree where the dead man hangs, into the past where the dead man leads us, surely nobody will follow us there! Into the room with a lighted candle (the company join arms, begin to rock to and fro) torching the procession on the ocean's bed; for the tale is long but the stars have time, and tomorrow won't catch us if we run. Because he opened the book and he found the answer - don't tell us yet, it's too dark!

(All eyes turn toward the back, where a wet shuffling sound signals the arrival of Archie Mo, hung with fronds of seaweed, glistening, inhabited by strange sea creatures. He receives the hero's welcome)

All: (severally) Miau! woof! welcome! etc.

Mrs X: Hero, explorer and searcher after the common cause, welcome!

Number: Saviour, the ratio! So have you resolved the great enigma by which I stand or fall? Have you localised the echo of the heartbeat of the universe (to somewhere within the region of 2) ? Your travels, perhaps, have led to the discovery of system-relations through perceptive and conceptual correlation based on the binary modality? The ratio of modality to totality, then I am E!

Beast: Now must you apply the wisdom of the ancients! Now is an historic moment for animalkind! The world awaits! Has not the seed been sown? Aristotle! Socrates! My better selves! ‘To maintain the sublime in the old sense'! Dispersion of animadversion, now. And of aspersion. We have achieved stasis! We are beyond the motive state. No more propagation! World-ectoplasm! Ecstogasm! (pause) . Bones which were frail shall be made unbreakable! Frail accessories chromework sinews, infallibly dipped in liquid oxygen! Starspun man! Not least beast! My horn glows with intuited knowledge, my body void implodes with the music of the spheres! The world is a myth, carefully nurtured, and we are its blossoms, laughing into space. Solomon!

(Or otherwise? Loud reminding bumhum. Meanwhile Mo remains abstracted, unhearing, staring into space. Throughout he has made no reponse)

Mrs X: What then, Mo?

Number: Come, tell all!

(The assembled company have now set to the banquet feast prepared in Mo's honour. Loud clamour....)

Number: Programme fadeout!

(Fades out din leaving Mo seated in total silence. He stirs, as if shaking off a dream or hynosis.)

Mo: Yes, I swam pleasantly, thank you for your concern.

(Removes golden net of seaweed from which the creatures have disappeared, perhaps inside him)

Mo: (Reflectively) No, it is in the proportion of modality to totality that we conceive our condition, in the wider sense...... We so small as as a slanted pea podpacked. That's what G wanted, I expect.

(Exit. Enter Jehovah's Witness, tearing hair)

JW: All near, all near! Have fear!

(Exit. Spotlight returns to company and hubbub)

Chief witness: (speaking quickly) ..... and thus it came to pass on the fifth day that.Mo conceived these thoughts which issued into the world perspex, to be therein for evermore trapped. But.... the box was open, the cat was out, the cat ate the fat meat, the meat was gone. The flies were left left forever and forever, only to buzz around their own genesis. Pandoramo!

P.Mo: (puffing) Oh! Ho! I can't make these flies go!

Postman: (breathlessly) Mr.Universal to your aid! (flies retreat buzzily) . Here! Take this! (hands him a letter) . Keep safe! Keepsake! Open only when in great danger! Help will be at hand! Oh, oh, must go! Forget you ever saw me!

(Vanishes in a puff of smoke. Archie reads painstakingly)

Archie: Mr....... O........ Mo (starts) Hey, it's the wrong Mo! (looks around, wildly, then reads again) .0, The Entrance, Newtown. Ill, ill! I wish I had never been born, it's all a mystery, well, well, well!

(Exit)

Act 3 Scene 2: Interlude. Animals and men don crimson gear.

(Town Counsellor comes to the front, speaks, croaking, fluffing his lines, feebly lifting one knee to attempt a rhythm) .

Town C: If newts, bats, wallabies and mice
Would vote Conservative
How could we tell the municipal men
(So superlative, so nice!)
Among the crowd of mammals when
Resplendent in their gowns and fur
Digging here and digging there
They try to trace that worrying sound
That's coming up from underground?

(They sing)

All: Dig, dig, what's that sound
Coming up from underground?
Is it the buzzing of a bee?
Is it the creaking of a tree?

Town C: All you beasts and all you men
This is now and that was then
You'll never get it anyhow
That was then and this is now.
All you men, you were once apes
Puzzled at the dancing shapes
Digging, digging, underground
(‘What's that sound? ') to reach the air.

(Chorus)

Town C: It begins to rhyme, it begins to ring
It begins to reverberate around
It wants to smother everything!
What's that crazy, rhythmic sound?
If you listen, you will hear
It pause for breath, and then go on
Burrowing beneath the town
Bring it down!

(Chorus. Exeunt)

Act 4, Scene 1: Great crowd of animals and men, bearing torches and banners, angrily marching and shouting.

All: Hang him, crucify him! The traitor to the cause! He knows we're after justice!

Mrs X: Oh, the brute!

Some: Yield up to the people's justice! No criminal, at large.... (they pass by, their voices fade. We discover Mo behind a bush, pants down, cowering) .

Archie: (clasps hand round mouth, bites finger, incoherent mumbling) Mmmm.... bbbb........

(Group of animals heard approaching. Mo cowers down)

One animal: He'll not last!

Other animal: Off with his head!

(Cat finds Mo behind bush, approaches)

Cat: Miaou!

(Voices off)

Voices: They've found him. This way!

(Crowd arrives, surges around Mo, reviling him, pinching him, spitting at him, kicking him. He makes frantic attempts to pull up his trousers. They bear him toward makeshift scaffold. Mrs X follows.)

One animal: Well, have you anything to plead before this tribunal of justice and liberty?

Mrs X: (Adopting Southern drawl) Oh, poor Mo! He's my hero!

Mo: Suddenly the men were around me. In the air they shot my prayer - you can't put me in prison for this! The vegetables of the next world's planning, my eyes felt open as though pain and knowledge of the infinite spaces between the stars are what's important for people less than 6' tall - the mouse people, the people of Jeremy, of the third day, the bat people...... for all the world I couldn't say where I have been, what I have seen.....

(They surge around, crowing, chanting, building a pyre. Mo remembers envelope, pulls it out with a flourish. Animals howl)

Animals: Enemy of the people! String him up!

(They begin to arrange rope round his neck. He opens the letter. Blinding flash and clouds of smoke. The crowd is scattered. A figure appears through the smoke - the Custodian of Words)

Custodian of words: All words in now, time's up! Come on please Ladies and Gents can I have all your words now please, you there, words please! Time's up, the show's closing. ‘Ands' and ‘ifs', nouns, adjectives, verbs, articles and conjunctions. We're closing down for the night. Back tomorrow! Let's have ‘em spelt right, please!

(Crowd forms queue in front of him, jostling and muttering. Mrs X consoles and solaces Archie in a corner, dabbing his face with a handkerchief. Custodian fills pipe and thick clouds of cloying smoke fill the stage, obscuring everything and causing coughing and gasping. Darkness descends, while each one regurgitates his or her lines hurriedly to the Officer, before making off in silent groups) .


Act 4, Scene 2: Stage empty, except for Mrs X, alone in a corner, sobbing...

Mrs X: Oh, poor, poor Mo! Poor me, doctor says - what am I to do? All, all alone, all alone, Mo gone, I had a terrible dream, a terrible, terrible dream! (fades)

(Noise of train passing going past. Voice of station announcer)

Announcer: This train's an empty train. All aboard, all aboard! All abroad!

(Sound of train dies away. Silence)