The Actress
The actress stands upon the stage
And the bustling world that surrounds her
Silences.
Only on the stage is there
Solitude.
Only on the stage,
When pressed under the repellent gravity
Of open eyelids, is there
The peace of mind
To react instinctively
To the mechanics of social magnetism.
The spotlight burns down, bright upon her,
Softening her make-up—
Letting it melts slowly down her skin
As if it were a glass
Through which we could see her.
She prefers the classics
And the avant-garde
When she needs to perform.
She would rather have a brilliant tongue
Sit in her mouth behind her cosmetically
Bleached and re-calibrated teeth
And vibrate the words she could not imagine;
To speak the poetic vespers
That came deep from the dark mind's early gloaming.
She would like to exorcise the demons
That torment her in a public display
Of plagiarized mimicry.
She would pantomime the emotions
She could not express,
And, in doing so,
She receives the pity and applause
That, through her abstruse personification,
She is not able to receive personally.
For a moment—
A moment of collective illusion—
She and the public
That loves her,
That would tear her down,
Can cry together
Over the suffering of the character
That possesses her nimble, choreographed frame.
Reality is suspended
And the air grows thick as the melodramatic dialog,
As both she and the world search
For the lingering traces of humanity
In the commercial world of cynicism
And disbelief.
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poem by Tim Stensloff
Added by Poetry Lover
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