The Golden Age is Coming Down

We must end this Golden Age right now.
We've seen with Maxfield Parrish eyes
these clouds like towering columns, gold
supporting tons of azure marble skies, a dome
whose surface curve
is too sublime to see! yet we perceive

that it is lit from below

and we are the light, we two. We see
that we are lime, and burn
too hot and bright - our eyes reflect
that fevered sheen, as we
each out-perform
each word, each single thing
we mean! we out-perform
We lie, sometimes -
it seems, from meaning it
too much.

This theater can't just keep its doors
open for us -

This one show,
ours

is such great, good fun!
oh wasn't it just one magnificent run?
it is going to have to
close.

We knew it, both
at the same moment - faith,
ah love, our act has lost its touch.

And we can take it on the road, bang
it into shape, lose this or that scene, or change
that or this cue -

or make this or that cut, or just
flop, collapse, exhausted, sit - and be excused

We are exhausted, love.

Lock eyes: resist.

You and I have said so much,
too much
and we'll say too much, yet.

But this:

There's nothing more to do. Except
admit

there's nothing more.

Accept.

Shall we try yet again,
to regain our breath?
to cry like a baby, without regrets?
or collapse into sleep
without trying to dream
to wake up the next day
like a criminal
escapes,

to return to the scene?

We'll return to the scene.

And the set that enchanted,
the lines that enthralled, the
choreographed dance that brought gasps
one to all,
and caught all hearts in throats,
and held one single thought
prisoner for hours-long moments
- the whole perfect, elaborate, natural, true
and brilliant artifice,
this one act, a genuine article that we wrought
- is through? No! - the act we set up,
we sat up through nights, discussing,
perfecting -

has burned through its light.

So brilliantly, until it was all
- true.

Until it was all.

Once it became all - from the weight of the sky,
the ceiling fell through

and with it:
the sun came in,
and the air went out.
In a snap
of two figures, the act
was a memory -

doubt

was not even a shadow
not in the cruel, harsh spot
thrown by that hard sun.

what can we do? To follow it now -

The set seems so hollow.

The light of day shows it's all painted on.
The lines don't mean what they used to say.
The dance cuts just as thrilling a figure
as ever you could wish, but its heart's not in it,
now is it? - and though we throw ourselves into
the lunge and embrace - and it fits!
with the click of an oiled display case
hinge, but - we no longer care how it plays.

Its heart has gone rote.

And we look up, and out. The audience - once proud,
lively and lovely, and sitting composed
all of glamorous, amorous, potential distinguished
and bright future selves - all who we ever could have
or have been - in a spell. Enrapt! So enrapt
with this charming, elaborate, desperate thing, this act
- as we grinned and we laughed our way through, and into
and through every heart in the place. Yours,
mostly, and mine - there was no gesture wasted
on us! And the show - what a crowning success!

You and I flew too far off the charts to test
So brilliant, so bad - that audience sat
struck down by each scene, entered into,
possessed!

Have they left, wanting more?

The audience, now
has eloped.

you and I
- oh, so sure! We were so sure,
we never had much use at all
for hope.

Well, a parting of ways. May as well
do it right. For so short, oh too short of
the best of all possible times, darling,
accomplice,
oh loved one of mine,

you and I

had one hell of a life.