The range runs from contralto to
a thin annihilating shriek;
the sensibilities, though true,
are too extravagant, too Greek.
Her breast (for holding daggers) heaves,
her falling double-trochee sighs;
no matter nobody believes
in La Stupenda’s sacrifice,
And probably they’d not approve
her horror of maternity,
but stamping audiences love
her high-paid, highly strung high C.
Such histrionics always win
the day, as everybody knows;
this silver-rinsed Feld-Marschellin
will somewhere, somehow, get her rose.
If not, then once the curtains fall
and the applauding pittites stand,
she’ll come in spotlights to the hall
the blood of Tristan on her hands.
Good Lord, preserve us from these raging
raucous flower-surrounded queens
who throw their hearts up on the stage
and drive away in limousines.
Second Nature: James Lindesay’s Poetry 