Joseph Brodsky
HISTORY OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
(A Roadshow)
ACT I
Prologue
Ladies and gentlemen and the gay!
All ye made of sweet human clay!
Let me tell you : you are okay.
Our show is to start without much delay.
So let me inform you right away :
this is not a play but the end of the play
that has been on for some eighty years.
It received its boos and received its cheers.
It won't last for long, one fears.
Men and machines lie to rest or rust.
Nothing arrives as quick as the Past.
What we'll show you presently is the cast
of characters who have ceased to act.
Each of these lives has become a fact
from which you presumably can subtract
but to which you blissfully cannot add.
The consequences of that could be bad
for your looks or your blood
For they are the cause, you are the effect.
Because they lie flat, you are still erect.
Citizens! Don't neglect
The Sun
s
in its orbit,
yet I feel morbid.
