Chris Allen Poet Free verse

heckling at the opera

i've composed a dream, which i would like to share with you
i am at the royal opera house in Covent Garden, and

i have front row seats for The Barber of Seville
in which i am stacked up behind the conductor

i can smell the shampoo and the warmth of the body
i wink at the oboe player, as we wait for the rapid-fire 

overture that will blow our socks off, as i pop an extra strong mint into my face 
and whisper to Jericho, "this will strike a chord."

and we're off. the velvet curtain looks delicious, i want to eat it, 
i want to smear it on my face like jam while the baton waves around hysterically, 
a frantic metronome having a seizure, 
and i can’t read a single dot on the page,
but the timbre of the oboe cuts through and the trombone bellows 
and the lute plucks at something deep in my gut 
and i’m watching all of this on a four-inch smartphone screen 
because the best time of the day is nighttime, it is the best time of the day, 
pouring boiling water into rubber hot water bottles for my wife, 
my bitesize opera treats before slumbering, 
a stolen hit of high culture in the quiet dark.
i want a Puccinian curiosity, but i don't know what that means
interval. dissonance. consonance.
my colleague, the music teacher, he explains the basics to me 
he reduces three hundred years of Italian heartbreak to four words, 
his mouth shaping the syllables with the precision of 
a perfectly articulated staccato, in the voice of Bugs Bunny: “crap story, good music.” 
i saw Madame Butterfly, i told him i needed to sit down and talk to someone,
all these memories flood back now, i want my opera house. i want the real one.  
ringing the church bell from the steeple, 
screaming that the church remains closed, locked up tight, until this town, 
this stupid town, gets its opera house. 

the overture ends and the applause breaks out. after it dies, 
i lean forward, towards the conductor's right ear and say,
"brilliant, boy."

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