Watching Cabaret
Forty some years ago,
I saw Cabaret in a college theater.
The female lead was barely five feet. Her lover
hardly a head taller. Both beautiful with big voices,
just toy-sized against the backdrop of 1930s Berlin
and the Nazi rise to power.
Brilliant casting, I thought, getting up
from my seat, though I’ll never know
if the student director chose lopsided
stature to make a political statement
or if our small private school didn’t have
a bigger pool of actors to choose from.
But these days as I worry my country
is dancing away from democracy to march
in goose step, it feels as if I’m a petite actor
surrounded by taller figures
noisily crowding the stage.
*
Jacqueline Jules is the author of Manna in the Morning (Kelsay Books, 2021), Itzhak Perlman’s Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press, and Smoke at the Pentagon: Poems to Remember (Bushel & Peck, 2023). Her poetry has appeared in over 100 publications. Visit her online at www.jacquelinejules.com
From The Archives: Published on This Day
- Three Poems by Kaothar Kadir (2024)
- Naviphobia by Sean Lynch (2021)
Cabaret, the movie, is my favorite movie of all time. I urge everyone who hasn’t seen it to see it now. Thank you for your fine poem.
We, the little people, can still trip ’em up, hit below the knees. We can’t forget the power of resistance, boots on the ground.
Love this cautionary call!
How I feel as you do in this powerful poem, Jacqueline! I keep thinking of SWIMMY….You are definitely far from alone in this!
Huge gut punch from this powerful work of art.