Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 12 Number 3, December 2011
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WAY TO HEAVEN by Juan Mayorga
Winnipeg Jewish Theatre, 2011
Arne MacPherson in an SS uniform
as a “reasonable,” cultured commandant
of a concentration camp dressing up
for a Red Cross inspection, ready
to put on a show for all the world
is a stage, finally, on stages where
images are refractions of other images
and evil is left to work like acid
burning through all reality until
the trains arrive at 6 and replacement
actors are called up to serve roles
that won’t be left vacant but always
call for the same gestures, repeated
endlessly till all that’s left are gestures
in the service of a Third Reich
meant to look like a clean work
of art echoed in every detail and
no one’s safe as long as everyone is
an understudy for a greater director
in Berlin ready to recast his puppets
all of this arrives clarified and
sifted through MacPherson’s face
to my third row seat in a world
where made up “facts” again
have begun to rule – all the world
must not become anyone’s stage
again