CARLO DEI BARONI MORTI 

Carlo dei Baroni Morti
had relinquished his stage acts
when he courted Concetta.
He left his Amorist text with the prompter,
gave up and went to stoop
under her screams and litanies. 

And no one ever saw him again.
It's a shame for the Amorist, colleagues said,
because 
Carlo dei Baroni Morti
had vocals that shook chandeliers
and enchanted hooded women
who secretely desired him
to unravel their mysteries. 

Concetta would have no clowning about:
she stitched up his gills
and burnt his scripts
and destroyed the winged costume
he wore for the final scene
in The Redemption of the Abducted Virgin. 

He had no acts left, not even sequences.
By time
Carlo dei Baroni Morti
morphed into a bat,
smoking and puffing away,
hiding inside the smoke
with his brain turned upside down,
shifting positions from the beams
to avoid tribulation. 

After long years
there at the Fountain
came men with trucks and machiney
for demolition.
Under the prompting box they found
the last script of
Carlo det Baroni Morti.
And it was as if they heard someone knocking
from behind the dampness
below the stage. 

Someone swore he had witnessed a bewigged man
pouring out port wine to sing
as he emerged centre-stage from the wings,
dressed as a bat. 

MARIO AZZOPARDI
1996