Oedipus Tyrannus

For my teachers

Catharsis builds across the dreadful air
From rostrum to the door. Pity and fcar
Swell with adrenalin of imagination
Into the blood. Almost, the hesitation
Breaks in heroic furies. Almost freed,
Passion recoils across the thing unsaid.

Heroics are anyway incongruous
With conservative tweeds. Togas are far more imperious,
And the homeward trolley inevitably disenchanting
But tell us, because the fear is haunting
That if we miscount we are lost. Tell us because
We hung upon your words when was it? once
Before the day was split by the broken faces
And eyes that burned holes through the classic theses.

Tell us by what loophole the characters
Of the mob scene are permited access
To the stage. Construct for us the philosophy
Of the supernumerary. By what mercy
They have the wings to stare from while the sun
Is turnedexclusive spotlight on the high tragedian.