WEBVTT

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There is to my knowledge only
one completely indestructible

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scene in the English
dramatic canon.

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Undestructible by
a mediocre acting,

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time cannot wither
nor incompetence stain

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the play-within-a-play in
Midsummer Night's Dream.

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You may remember its
subject is tragic.

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It's about the very
unhappy unfolding

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of several misunderstandings
between the lovers Pyramus

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and Thisbe who
come to a grim end.

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And you may also remember
that the other players

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in their tragedy include
moon, lion, and wall.

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So they will make small
appearances in this poem

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as well.

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It's dedicated to the
spectacular Welsh actor, Daniel

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Evans, whom I first
saw on stage play

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the part of Francis Flute, who
is the Mechanical, who then

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plays Thisbe, but only after
some protests about how

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he has a beard coming and
so really shouldn't be

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cast in the lady's part at all.

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The title of the poem is
a slightly botched version

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of a slightly botched compliment
exchanged between the lovers.

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Its "Eyes like leeks".

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"It had almost nothing
to do with sex.

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The boy, in his corsets
and farthingale.

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His head voice and his
smooth for the duration shin

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was not and never had
been simply in our pay.

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Or was it some lost logic
the regional accent restores?

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A young Welsh actor may
play a reluctant laborer

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playing Thisbe botching
similes, and stop our hearts

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with wonder.

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My young friend, he's seven,
touched his mother's face

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last night and said, it's wet.

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And making the connection
he has had to learn by rote.

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You're sad.

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It's never not
like this for him.

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'As if' the adolescents mouth
wherever California spills its

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luminous vernacular 'as if'.

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Until the gesture
holds or passes,

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let's just say we'll
live here for a while.

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Oh, habitus.

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Oh, wall.

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Oh, moon.

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For my young friend, it's never
not some labored simulacrum.

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Every tone of voice
each give, each take

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is rested from an
unrelenting social dark.

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There's so much dark
to go around how odd

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to be this and no other, and
like all the others marked

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for death.

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It's a wonder we pass
for locals at all.

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Take Thisbe for instance.

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Minutes ago she was
fretting for lack of a beard

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and now she weeps for a lover
slain by a minute's misreading.

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Reader, it's sharp
as the lion's tooth.

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Who takes the weeping away
now takes delight as well,

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which feels for all the
world like honest work.

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They've never worked with
mind before the rich man says,

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but moonlight says with flesh."

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