The Director

The Director By Sy Roth The directors-- For want of a nail They were not wanting So many nails, A cache of nails To drive into their coffins Paid in jiggers of vodka They would slog the miles To the pits. Surround them, The innocents, Choreograph their end A Twyla Tharp ending Accordion accompaniment Played to a defunct Mahler To keep them mollified. The nails see only vermin In their intoxicated vision Smell their fear Before a lightning crackle Marks crescendic endings. Poor naked souls stack themselves like cordwood On top of yet, still-warm bodies. Melodic line met-- Last look before the darkness enfolds Those who will entomb them Lamblike creatures align at the flag They queue from right to left A Hebraic arrangement To a two-shot tango-- One reserved for the child held aloft By a resigned dame who sees no exit— Child held aloft Limp in naïve trust To be followed by the second crack Then hustled into the pit to join the others. Swim in their own river of blood The stagehand obeys the director’s cue. He rolls them into the abyss New cast assembles Take their place at the flag Unclaimed trash While the director trods on their backs To dispatch those who dared to live, Souls forgotten Sinners in the hands of an angry god.