In Shakespeare's Last Supper the
        disciples (you, me, all of us here)
        are depicted seated alongside where
        He stands at mid-table and grins
        down like an MC at our expressions—
        are we shown, the goblets gleaming,
        gloating as they goad us on to toast
        the centrality of this spokesperson,
        the notional character whereby
        everyone has been sketched vis-á-vis
        the honoree we can only eulogize,
        dependent as we are on His
        moodswings. Astonished, confused
        by the ultra ups and downs of manic
        means, now we watch, we lean, we pout
        (the whole propitiatory repertoire)
        worried about our survival, inert
        (like a frozen rictus facing its fate)
        unless depression drafts and draws
        us forth the extempore pose, myth,
        puppetary projection, limned mobilary
        mosaic that apes some drab-escapist
        syndrome, imagination. Which is why
        each evening we pray for a chance
        to cross the ditch-penny distances
        between the footlights and the fear,
        vowing to allow each guise of role
        to kill us, to raise us from the dust, to
        guide us like magi toward summons,
        obediently steered by the stock star
        the marquee, believing our need—
        such faith could pass those deserts
        of farce to find this upper room.
        Sensing the inn beneath us seethe
        with indifference with doubt, we
        concentrate harder on His remarks
        and jokes, trying to make up for all
        the audiences who've failed this test.
        Never quite reassured by any overt
        wink of His assessing eyes into
        our ranks (are any of us missing—
        was castcall taken?), we keen forward,
        eager for our cues, nervous knowing
        that if there is error here, at a signal
        the maitre d' will find replacements
        for this testimonial "Eucha-Roast"
        from the rabble stabled downstairs
        where the tavern yawns into its beer.
        Life is rescue from such anonymity.
        Their situation is death, is subject—
        those groundlings can never guess
        how much it crowns to end up here,
        costume-chosen, endowed by makeup
        with certitude, form, identity—
        Who wouldn't be jealous to know
        how blessed we fictions are!
        And yet every member of our
        Dramatis Personae wonders if s/he
        was jotted into life as whimsically
        as Emperors choose sacrificial
        victims, as any Divine Ruler or
        Hollywood Player and whether
        with a fingerflick Hamlet Portia Timon
        's erased, gone, again. This banquet—
        how many have we attended like it?
        Daily we wait like napkins to get
        opened, held to the face like a mask,
        stained and used then tossed aside
        like paper towels, paper disposables,
        paper identities (similes/metaphors)—
        like the paper whose headlines fade
        around our names/our fame. Our bits
        done, our pieces recited, oh it's bits
        alright, it's pieces it crumbles into,
        and yet how avowingly we cry, foils
        corrupted by one front-row cough.
        Exit as trash, as avid Kleenex exiled
        in a breath to the canteen of lost
        turns, the greenroom of oblivion.
        Now if there were respite in such
        neglect, a grace period with no need
        to perform, but both in the wings and
        on one's caught, regardless of what's
        true. Far, near, (hall or gallery) that
        mendicant theater is pursuant always,
        lugging and luring its wares:
        wherever we are, wherever here is
        is also an entrance, a set of false steps,
        (bright-lit pratfall-pit) a trap for fools,
        a stooges' cage, every scrim and apron
        prinked with sham, props, champagne
        buckets doffing their caps in fealty—
        Even the proscenium's subservient
        arch bows and begs a platform for
        actors trumpeting loft-aired routines,
        voluminous effusions or, what's worse,
        kingly-haired creatures washing
        the feet of their inferiors, sudsy
        obsequious declamatory eruptions
        filled with the rehearsed lava of
        bold slaves, the bald brimmings
        of an improperly-public humility
        (unlike the servant who never spills
        his waiting master's entree except
        in the pantry when there is no-one
        to witness his extravagant remorse)—
        All these openly-imploring apertures,
        these theme-cut bubblings-up, paeans,
        (akin to pale critics' acclamations)
        would crack like a laughtrack at
        that imposture, that pastiche, applause:
        who'd pity these pathetic devotees,
        advocates haunted by nothingness,
        by that same humanhood to whom
        white placecards validate each plate.
        Who sat us here? (Athwart this portrait
        the descending order of our dinner
        ranks auditions more disdain,
        every hors d'oeuvre daubed with scorn)—
        In our state, our omnipresence,
        to which can we aspire? Sometimes
        we think: if only there were Someone
        somewhere, somehow, though of course
        that's impossible: Someone outside
        this frame—an absent self, a spectator
        vivid at duress, who can feel
        the real joy and pain we mime—
        who sees the sun setting out there now,
        the approach of a nighttime unlike
        our curtain: Someone who lacks
        the judas window wherein we acolytes
        recognize ourselves, the betrayal
        portal we have all portrayed so
        plausibly it has at last retained us,
        replaced us with stainedglass.
        (Through which, on rare occasions,
        that said Someone fills us with light,
        illuminates us.)—Overcome, undone,
        we feel ourselves vanish, we dwindle
        to a painted panel. We fade, we die.
        His stasis renders us too slenderly.
        Or is this endless attendance
        the promised purgation, the shedding
        of every emotion, every weight?
        Is it gain, this loss, this usurped,
        staged starving, this repast-of-reruns
        upon a menu whose full-promised
        delicacies remain a manna dream,
        backdrop glamour (milk-and-honey)
        a feastless Eden, a heaven hunger's
        expelled whole from. Why aren't we
        at home here, in this plenty, this
        supernal supper—why this finicky
        desire to avoid the silverware, the knife
        paler (because it reflects us) than
        the poor fork that renews whose flesh
        and encores veins across each dish
        until its unction-urged tines impale
        spearlike and nail the cacodaemon
        that shall huzzah hail our Hostmaster . . .
        See: the chair He occupied is empty—
        expecting the miracle or bloodcrime
        through which all of us must assume
        His part, the mummers-meal, the sealed
        communion. Bard bread, scene wine,
        unyield your transubstantiations:
        beyond that superceded throne
        lies the utter ubiquity of the known.
        And so, viva, bravo, boffo, olé,
        so each paraclete's performance moves us.
        Cheers! echoes the pledge, promiscuous
        each voice ID's the oath. The mic
        on the dais quivers, shook by our cry,
        sole intercessor of this ceremony.


    Copyright © Bill Knott, 2000.  All Rights Reserved.