You know my face yet forget my name,
but then, it’s for my roles I’m known.
I’ve spend a lifetime in the game.
Now, in the shadows, I am alone
I’ve lived perhaps a hundred lives-
on film, yet failed to live my own.
A stranger to my flesh and blood
whose children won’t pick up the phone.
I remember that it used to ring
Back when my acting won acclaim.
For years the star was on my door,
I slept with starlets, drank Champagne.
Now my Cancer bites within
and I take pills to mask the pain.
There will be no more roles for me
Though I could make a passable Lear;
Hear me raving in the storm
but it’s a waste with no Fool near.
For me there will be no happy ending.
Each painful breath is such a chore.
I won praise for my “authenticity”
But Love wound up on the cutting room floor.