Antigone Poem by Sam Watkinson

The guards place down their cards and the audience breathes; They are glad to be going home intact tonight,
And Antigone walks in her garden which does not regard the people-
As now, as the characters are in place
With one expression on their thousandth face,

The grandmother supports our heroine,
As strong as any fever-
And the guards make her brother king.

She keeps her eyes closed a moment,
To be touched as a lame animal,
With her teeth buried in her mouth,
Until she hurls out her defiance,

Like the soil on the corpse of her name.

And this bumbling guard Jonas,
With his fears, un-striped and alarmed,
Brings the tragedy in through the door;
Gripping her with his filthy hands.

Do you smell the death in the street?
Can you hear the tumbril a-coming?
Is your television too loud?
Too much smoke in the air?

The king with his rights and his work,
His obligation to the state,
While the rebel Antigone sweats gently,
And eases our lives out of place.

The stage is prepared and curtains drawn,
The play must now begin;
Let the tremors and wonders enthrall us
And like Creon dream to be animals again.

In the cold-sapped hills of redemption,
There are no angels near,
The lights went out, the bar closed,
And you walk back down the thoroughfare.

And one relentless thought in your mind-
Why did I dig up just to cover his name?