Monologue Madness

Dear Juliet, But soft, the wedding bells Do ring Do you hear them, Juliet? Do you hear Their drawn out song? Onward may they carry you Into the arms of your beau The one who would not fight The man who pledged his heart to peace The coward who only loves those With giving hearts And timid memories Will you walk happily to the altar, Juliet? Will birds sing? Will dragonflies parade about your hair? Will the clergyman bless you To your satisfaction? And wherefore art thou, Romeo? Stuck in a grave A mausoleum Decorated like royalty Though a title Never would befit His head or person Do you stand out on your balcony, Juliet? Do you pretend to hear The soft words Of young love Levitating up to you? Do you wish the man About to be your husband Could spring such affection Towards you? Do you trace your hand Across your heart And pray for Romeo? And do you think He hears you When you do? Dear Ju...

Dear Guinevere, There’s a picture of you and Arthur Standing near a body of water Posing for a photograph Trying to look happy It’s somebody’s wedding (Not yours) And Arthur’s hand is around your waist And he’s leaning into you As if he’s whispering something In your ear And you’re looking At the person taking the picture Not at the camera But at the photographer As if you want to tell them Something But can’t Because Arthur is close He’s too close And he won’t like Whatever it is You have to say Dear Guinevere Maybe it is your wedding after all Although your dress Is very casual And your shoes Are far too extravagant To belong to a new bride Your crown is slightly askew And we can’t see your wedding ring But that might have something to do With the way you’re being photographed You have your hands Behind your back And Arthur looks like He could be keeping them there But at the same time There’...

Dear Josephine, Your mother says If we’re ever to marry I have to escape from my island prison And show up at your door Holding three different kinds of flowers And a box of chocolates For your senile, old uncle Who does not approve of me I have conquered all the worlds Laid out before me But a bell rings in a classroom And I am doodling on notepaper Writing your name in various ways With my name right beside it Josephine, will you attend prom with me? Josephine, will you see the world with me? Josephine, will you call me Genghis Kahn? Will you call me Alexander the Great? Josephine, will you tell me My own name? Here by the water, I watch as the swimming team Traverses the waves Slowly transforming into sea lions That beach themselves On varsity jackets While a school bus waits To take them home I write endless correspondence to your mother Asking her to amend her demands So that I may skip the step of purchasing fl...

Dear Wendy, Salutations and congratulations Are in order For today, you marry a man A grown-up Who will care for you When you are old And love you When you are irritable Someone who does not care If you are pretty or ugly Because he loves something else in you That cannot be described We do not know what that thing is But we’re sure it’s very special If it can make another person Overlook all the horrible things One becomes As they grow older And we’re certainly glad You were gifted with it Unfortunately, we will not be attending your wedding For reasons that are interpersonal In that, they deal with multiple people In personal ways That intersect In hurtful ways To some of those people We’re sorry for sounding so aloof But we don’t have real weddings on Neverland Just ceremonies where pirates marry mermaids And are then eaten by their new brides As soon as they’re taken back to their bridal cove Figuring o...

Dear Autumn, As the winter Chases the last of the summer Around the moon You arrive in a chariot And leave in a procession Dear Autumn, who gives us poetry Dear Autumn, who departs without her bounty Dear Autumn, who teaches us to cherish The things we let melt in the snow Or burn off in the sun Autumn, who led me to Spring But wouldn’t let me fall in love Because nothing will last And everything will change Beneath the tree house my mother made me I found messages from Sunday’s And lost Thanksgivings They were letters to a girl I never met Because she lived across the street And only went on dates with boys Who told funny stories And smoked stolen cigarettes I wrote the letters And buried them in my backyard But when you write a love letter in Autumn She keeps it in her pocket And brings it to harvest When the time is right When my mother was sick I returned home And climbed up into The old treehouse Wo...

To Cleopatra on Her 16 th Birthday Hail O Queen O Sailer of Rivers O Temple Goddess O Chosen One O of O’s Of all the O’s Hail to Thee On this— Your sixteenth birthday May the candles on your cake Burn like the houses of your enemies When the guards sought them out And made them watch As their scheming huts And conspiracy tents Were turned to ash May the cake taste as fine As the nectar Rained down upon you When you first born A baby clad in happy tears Shed by the gods And may the presents Be to your liking Except for the one from your aunt Which is probably A gift certificate Or a blouse That won’t fit May everything be perfection On this day of days When the sands creep up to the palace And the crows fly overhead And the whispers of enemies Move behind our ears And beyond our understanding Peace be to you, Cleopatra When other girls from school arrive To see if your sixteenth birthday party C...

Dear Edison, At the center of a light bulb Is the twist of an idea And next to the idea Is the person in the other room Gathering up her thoughts She finds herself Listening to invention But through a wall Or past a door Or beyond her own understanding Not because she isn’t bright But because she’s married to a genius A genius who doesn’t pick up his socks Or remember to let the dog out In the morning She’s called ‘beleaguered’ by friends But she feels all right The mornings are mostly empty But the afternoons have sound And the evenings Still have a touch of the physical Wine fills up just so much Of certain glasses Left around the kitchen And the garbage looks like It could spark a fire At any moment Other than these small breakdowns She feels good about her life And the man she loves The man in the other room Her pockets have notes in them And the notes tell stories About how this day was Or that ...

Dear Joe, Today I’d like to introduce you To the woman you’re about to marry Oh, don’t worry The woman is me But the woman is also Standing a world away from you In a place You’ll never get to No matter how badly You’d like to see it I don’t know that woman’s name But she’s been with me For as long As I can remember Stuck to the bottom Of who I was Trying to get me To pay attention To her But anytime I looked over at her She’d turn her back on me And let go on wondering About who it was On the other side of me Joe, did you know You were marrying a poet? I didn’t either Until now People tell you That the dangerous thing About marriage Is that the people you love Change And that you change And that one day You wind up Two different people Who can’t love each other Anymore But the truth is I don’t even know who I am now So if I change I probably won’t even know it I just hope I ch...

Dear Blorta, On this, your Day of Wed We excitedly welcome your new life-man Flerg Into our happy family We know you received much sadness When your previous life-man Was savagely attacked By Little-Hands-Big-Teeth And we wept alongside you For many days and nights Wondering why the Fire Gods Take and take and take from us Their Tiny Rock People When Spoot was eaten We told you that life would go on But to speak with truth We did not believe this to be so Life is so short Our eldest tribeswoman, Gerta Is just thirty-seven And she’s only made it this far Because she refuses To leave her cave Also, no one has seen her In many years So it is very possible She is dead Most of us never make it to one Day of Wed Let alone two So as Little-Hands-Big-Teeth was picking clean Every last bone of Spoot We thought— Well, Blorta’s definitely going to die alone And we knew that because tribal law dictates That any widow wh...

Dear Agatha, First Woman of the Cosmos When the sun was created You stepped inside of it And became a woman I remember feeling very proud And at the same time, concerned That you would burn up Within its fiery center But you stepped out again And laughed Diving into a pool of darkness That had formed Around the orbit Of a planet The size of six Jupiter’s This was before we invented science Or physics Or geography Or creation You were before creation And you created Yourself And in doing so You invented your own Birth So that was unusual Agatha, your eyes Were made of time Until time needed to be given To those who didn’t have enough of it And from then on They were stars Just like the sun And that was when you would look at us And ask us questions About yourself Great minds have been trying to comprehend the Universe For nearly as long as it has existed And you, a child of the Universe Are no...