I, Harlequin

My smile is worse than my frown

Image created by Author on Dall-E (all rights reserved)

Seen only by those with eyes to see, I caper among you. My dance mocks yours; I make the graceful grotesque and the grotesque graceful. My voice mocks yours; I reduce your epics to limericks and answer your diatribes with odes.

They call me servant, but who do I serve? The self-absorbed Lovers? Only because it is how I defy the Old Ones. Not you, blustering Pantaloon, assuming wisdom by right of age and wealth and still a rich old fool as you were once a rich young one. Nor you, dry pedantic Dottore, full of supposed knowledge that benefits none but yourself. The braggart Scaramouche? Set my stick against his sword and see the outcome!

The true servants know me better. Too agile to fall to the brutal pranks of Clown. Too quick in wit to be overcome by stern and melancholic Pierrot. Columbine, my Columbine! I won you long ago and your wit and mischief match my own!

I serve the Drama, the Story, the Plot. A tap of my stick changes the scene. My words, my songs, strip way all masks and disguise, reveal the truth behind the folly and the folly behind the truth. I raise the curtain and bring it down.

Words like knives, laughter that flays like a whip. Try to catch me, I disappear, then strike from behind. Tapping my stick to take you from your place of comfort and…