Pale-faced and stiff,
he stood...
Unmoving - frozen in time.
His chest no longer heaved,
his limbs dangled dead.
His painted lips were parted
with no spoken words.
We have before seen him breathe.
We have before noticed his wordless actions.
We have before heard his song.
And this is his end -
A space
unaccompanied by his usual
careful and subtle gestures.
He bore no voice now as he did then.
But his story was told loud
through the lyrics and music
of a hauntingly, mournful song...
Showcasing the lone relatable teardrop
that never dries.
Pierrot, the sad clown, with white face and loose white blouse, expressing slowly and subtly and in the absence of and beyond words, emerged in the nineteenth century from his roots in stock comedies and pantomimes to become the embodiment of a certain artistic type, a specific strain of artistic emotion: sensitive, melancholy and solitary, and at once playful and daring in subverting language and suggesting the fraught but still facile and fluctuating nature of gender.