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@ 27.105 MHz: Galacticies; Review Of A Recent Theatrical Performance
I asked the Chief Stage Manager, "How can
"one of the characters depicted know
"the name of this enactment? Would this call
"into question thus theater's 'fourth wall?'"
He could not answer. Curtains rose, and time,
that we control, stopped during the whole play---
its first and last performance. Prose and rhyme
deployed the words that, with us, had their way:
no angels--us, we laughed or turned a squirm
in our disgust at some love scenes we saw:
from our entropic booths, none screamed, "Good show!"
How could a minor character, called Poe,
have claimed this was a tragedy called, "Man?"
bad comic clown slaughtered by just a worm!
" . . .the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
and its hero, the Conqueror Worm."
---E. A. Poe, "The Conqueror Worm"
Starward
