Never tried anything like this before and the ending at least is rather
lame. I have never written about a performer, and I don't do singer
reverence real well--but Teresa Stratas is one of my icons both of
dedication and a lifetime of mishugass. I joke I've been in love with
her (sort of) longer than I was married, but that might not be a joke.
A MEDITATION: TERESA STRATAS SINGING KURT WEILL
This room is wreckage
a sewer with an ergonomic chair
balled-up paper
a full trashcan
books and musical instruments
strewn on the floor
all appropriate where music
slashes even without the German
Stratas cracks the whip
she keeps in her mouth
nasty even when melodic
poisonous emotions,
Surabaya Johnny is ricin
lungblasting music terrorism.
The story: Lenya herself,
staring into the abyss
lung cancer
came to Stratas
backstage at the Met
after a Mahagonny
before the whole company said
"Teresa, you are my inheritor,
and will sing my husband's music"
and both these women
famed for their inner clutter
for ganglia and neurons dragging
on the pavement for
trains and men to crush
found the bond
so now both are gone: one dead,
the other quit and disappeared,
music's Ambrose Bierce
(at least not Weldon Kees)
waiting perhaps for a Voice
to order broken silence
the Happy End.
KTW/12-21-05
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