'That's Showbiz', by Paul Illidge
I’m dreaming of a white
Christmas on the road to
A desert golf course
Riding some would-be camel
With a pharaoh-like partner
Behind me crooning
That his love is buried deep
In a false woman’s heart
When
Bing!
Up ahead there’s a mirage
An oasis flickering and
Shimmering
And Charlton Heston with
His hair parted down the middle
Like the Red Sea
Is dancing kind of funny
With a cute Cleopatra
Who could pass for Elizabeth
Taylor anywhere
The music is ancient
The hieroglyphics are real
A thirsty extra in plus-fours
Pipe between his teeth
Sidles up to our caravan and
requests permission to play through
Cut!
Yells the director
So I return to wardrobe
Feeling a strange and confusing
Excitement that somehow
I lived a long time ago
In a kingdom history has
All but forgotten
Where the high priests of comedy
Performed nightly for crowds
Of wildly appreciative pyramid-builders
Paul Illidge currently lives in Zurich where he has begun work on a Situationist novel about the friendship between Vladimir Lenin, James Joyce, and the Dadaist sculptorTristan Tzara who were living in Zurich during World War One.