© John Robert Lee
Sketches
and Canticles of Lent
after
Shallon Fadlien
Pierrot – Mardi Gras
Filthy feathers, that painted shoe, trampled headpiece,
etcetera
choking drains down the route,
street-light blinking out, stale roti
baddening the guts, your eyes sharp for midnight bandit
or coke jumbie looking to make ole mas
with the unwary —
you
clown prince, you celebratory idiot
you forget she was Coolie Devil original,
Jab-Jab Mistress, maker of scourges?
Socialite – Ash Wednesday
God, to be outta this talk-show bakanal
these infernal cycles of mamaguy kaiso politricks
perpetual, shameless, cell-phone scandals
and all else; man gone cold in Toronto
landlord looking for his portion,
me sleeping with my fantasies —
in
the penitential procession
the priest and his boys washing
you, beloved masquerader, in their platter of ashes.
Masque – Good Friday
We know the triumphant end of that old scenario:
disembowelled shroud, vacant catacomb
incredible gossip of love-struck women
whose eyes and hands and arms
encompassed the impossible incarnate eternal,
the risen God —
the
empty mask, inanimate
signature of death’s humanity
crosses to centre stage before that tremendous denouement.
© Art: Masque by Shallon Fadlien
Poem in Pierrot. Peepal Tree, 2020.
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