The defeat of desire

by Maria Claudia Faverio

The epic of desire
has faded to a faint
utterance,
a confusion of syllables
unable to join
into trickery of words.

Speaking their parts
as in a trance of thought,
the personae of life
stand on the stage
and stare,
waiting for the grand finale
that doesn’t come.

They are tired.
They are not in search
of an author,
but of a prompter.
They don’t remember the words,
they don’t know why
they are dressed as Pierrots,
make-up blurred
by real tears
and sweats of life
and fiction
and life again.

But the prompter
doesn’t speak the word,
and they ramble on
like drunken sailors,
laughing at themselves
in the tacit hysteria
of despair.

And the grand finale doesn’t come.
Not even a shabby finale.
The perfection of the circle
is the consummation
of sufferance,
the consumption of hope.
The prompter is dead
as the personae.