Peter E. Murphy
Watching The Crucible in the Time of Trump at Theatr Newydd, Cardiff
First of all, everyone is terrified.
Is she going to fly again? I hear she flies.
The word “lies” lies inside of flies, inside of families.
A clink of good women are shackled together,
away from their families because of lies.
No president in history has been treated more unfairly.
No president in history believed himself so wise.
I said, I see the devil, and they believe me.
I say, even the most sensible sometimes believe a lie.
The extremists of opposing beliefs lie closer
to each other than they do to their own allies.
When he called the investigation a witch-hunt,
the congressman from Salem said that was a lie.
Apocryphal, I suspect, that the Black Panthers
and the KKK raged together against race unity rallies.
But the true believer is a murderer, not a martyr,
when he explodes himself in his desire to terrorize.
They were actors playing their rolls, until at the curtain call,
they broke the fourth wall for the Manchester dead and hospitalized.
The words “casual” and “ties” survive in casualties.
Editor’s Note: From February to June 2017, Arthur Miller’s The Crucible toured the UK and Luxembourg in a production by Sell A Door Theatre Company and The Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch in association with Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg. The production ran at the New Theatre (Theatr Newydd) in Cardiff from May 23 to May 27.
Peter E. Murphy is the author of Stubborn Child (Jane Street Press, 2005), a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize; Challenges for the Delusional (Jane Street Press, 2005), a book of writing prompts; and four poetry chapbooks. His recent essays and poems appear or are forthcoming in The Common, Diode, Guernica, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The New Welsh Reader, Rattle, Word Riot, and Poems in the Aftermath (an online poetry feature forthcoming as a print anthology from Indolent Books). He is the founder of Murphy Writing of Stockton University. www.peteremurphy.com.
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