Poor Opera
by Tim Staley
The Washington Post says opera is the only art form less popular than poetry. On my run this morning I saw a hawk drop into the top of a tree with his claws out. Up there he'll eat several doves on the half shell. And all the mothers are down on the ground, squawking in futile circles, afraid themselves of being eaten, and the fathers, they can’t be bothered, they’re down by the Rio Grande practicing their Latin. Opera can't be helped, like the Democratic Party, no matter how much money is sunk into the Santa Fe Opera House. So don't be worried about me not crossing the aisle with this, this is a prose poem which is even less popular than regular poetry, which only 6.7% of Americans even read, according to The Washington Post, but that's OK, this still kicks opera's ass. Should you see opera in the hallway looking pathetic, you can tell him he looks sharp in those slacks, but I'd stop there.
Tim Staley teaches poetry in Las Cruces, New Mexico. He is originally from Montgomery, Alabama.
What sphinx of marble and velvet bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?
Opera! Opulence! Beauty! Ugliness! Greasepaint and unobtainable encores! Children screaming in the balconies! Boys sobbing in the cheap seats! Old men weeping in the foyers!
Opera! Opera! Nightmare of Opera! Opera the loveless! Mental Opera! Opera the heavy judger of men!
Opera the incomprehensible prison! Opera the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of aesthetic bliss! Opera whose arias are judgment! Opera the vast sink of talent! Opera the stunned supernumeraries!
Opera whose mind is pure affectation! Opera whose blood is running flowers! Opera whose fingers are ten coluraturas! Opera whose breast is an enormous chandelier! Opera whose ear is a pit of repertory!
Opera! Opera! Gilding and sodium lights! Ballet dormitories! Deranged phantoms! Prima donnas! Stagehands! Librettos! Invincible recitatives! Granite countertenors! Monstrous bombs!
They broke their backs lifting Opera to Heaven!
Funny & relevant.