Piece together the pieces of a scattered mind

Make a scented paste of the bump and grind

A play, a performance, a story played out

An emotion whispered with a gentle pout.

The sweat must not smell and the hurt must not show

But Feelings must reach all the way back to the last row

The arms reach out to metaphorically embrace

The heart swells and presses against each face

The audience looks up with spell-bound eyes

At this live marionette – a truth spinning lies!

Making them aware of things within that said

“We live in you, in your heart and your head”.

The Actor, a rebel, a dangerous propagator

Story-teller, ideate-or, other people’s narrator

A bleeder, a weeper, manic laugh generator

A reader, emote-r, Life’s Dramatic Curator

A long pointed realization reaching out from the stage

Ensconced in words that challenge the day and the age

With unfolding events, unraveling text off the page

Shattered, intact, peeling, perfect – out of the emotional cage

Points of light grow into shafts and beams

As the darkness flows and ebbs in streams

Colours highlight spaces, evoke longings and anger

Push through Love redolent with passionate languor

Inhabiting that light, filling that stage, the Actor is keen

To live through people and times that may never have been

But which echo inside and fill each cavernous soul

With images and dreams and yearnings et al

Spinning with rage, broken hearts shatter on the floor

As young couples with rosy lips float in through the door

The spotless maiden is turned into a witch by conspiracy

And great masses fight for freedom and democracy…

Where have these people gone, they filled the hall a moment ago

Who is that person, solitary clown, his paint leaking over his ego?

Is he responsible for all that I am feeling, making me think

There was a war on in here and I too was on the brink

Those lovers who met me here, their story both happy and tragic

Could this Actor have created them and this illusion, this magic?

No! Foul creature! To enter my heart and mind, you dare?

When I seldom even allow myself in there…

When the curtain came down the stands were silent with thunder

The crowd that roared with applause and cheers was torn asunder

With sudden uncertainty now that the feeling had gone

Of walking through lightly after having stumbled upon

Backstage they are packing up the night’s dreams

And opening up bottles of cleansing creams

And swigging at brewed nectar they call spirits

Joshing each other about curtain calls and credits

Another show done, another pay-packet in the bank

Keep the children in school and family out of the dank

There will be food on the table and fire in the hearth

Then new places, rehearsals and shows to stave off dearth